We were excited to read that Group five farmer Ben Andrews and Group seven farmer Tom McVeigh had been selected as part of the 2025 Nuffield Farming Scholarship cohort.

The pair will be introduced formally along with 22 other candidates at the Nuffield Farming Scholarship conference in Belfast later this year.

Picking a topic close to his heart, and his farm, Ben will be exploring flooding and diffuse agricultural pollution, looking at agriculture's role in the causes and solutions. Parts of Ben's farm in Herefordshire are often submerged, with flooding on the fields and the farm causing access issues at the main entrance, to the farm buildings and more recently to Ben's home.

Suffolk farmer Tom will be looking at a study of nut production, propagation, processing and marketing in the UK. In 2022 Tom took over responsibility for the family farm from his father, to increase its biodiversity he wanted to move from monoculture to permaculture and polyculture (growing many crops). Some of the crops that Tom has planted on his farm include walnut and hazelnut trees in an agroforestry system.

We wish both Ben and Tom all the best of luck on their travels next year and can't wait to see what they discover.

The Just Farmers connection to Nuffield Farming Scholarships doesn't stop there though, in fact if our founder Anna Jones hadn't been selected as part of their 2016 cohort, we might not be here today!

Anna's report 'Help or Hinder? How the Mainstream Media Portrays Farming to the Public' is where Just Farmers really started and with thanks to initial grants from The Royal Countryside Fund, the Frank Parkinson Agricultural Trust and the Mercer Family Charitable Foundation (who still fund us today!) Anna managed to make her report a reality - bridging the divide between the media and the agricultural industry through our work.

And, Anna, Ben and Tom aren't the only scholars in our network, with Sophie Gregory, Ruth Grice, David Throup, Ian Baggs, Stephen Briggs, Stephen Ware, Robert Thornhill, Mark Bowyer, and Oliver White also being scholars!