This was our third year exhibiting at Groundswell.
On Tuesday, Carolyn and I packed up the car and headed to Lannock Farm in Hertfordshire for two days unlike any other in the farming calendar. We don’t go with sales targets. We go to learn, to listen, to catch up with the farmers we already know, to make new connections, and to immerse ourselves in the conversations that make Groundswell one of a kind.
Every year, we come away exhausted, inspired and hopeful.
Groundswell has become a meeting place for people who care deeply about the future of farming. Farmers, growers, scientists, doctors, researchers and innovators all gather because they share a common belief: that healthy soil, healthy food, healthy people and a healthy planet are all connected.
This year, there were more than 500 speakers and over 10,000 visitors. Groundswell is often described as the “Glastonbury for farmers”. We were lucky with the weather, there was wholesome food, Andy Cato kept us dancing on Wednesday evening, and everywhere you looked, people were talking, questioning, sharing ideas and telling stories. It’s difficult not to come away inspired.
A memorable week with Dr Chris van Tulleken
One of the highlights for me this year was seeing Dr Chris van Tulleken speaking on the Big Top stage.
Only a week earlier, we’d been with Chris and his brother Xand filming CBBC’s Operation Ouch! on one of our Oxfordshire locations, Red Farm. During filming, Chris described it as “one of my favourite places in the world.” Hearing that was special enough. Then, just a few days later, there he was at Groundswell, encouraging us all to think differently about food, particularly the impact of ultra-processed food on our health and on future generations.
Red Farm has welcomed the Operation Ouch! team back year after year, filming ten new episodes each summer. It’s a farm where regenerative principles underpin everything they do. Knowing Chris returns for the sixth year running in 2026 feels like a wonderful endorsement of the kind of farms we’re proud to represent.
The conversations we’ll remember
The talks are exceptional, and thankfully, many are available to watch afterwards because we hardly left our stand.
The conversations kept coming.
This year, more than any other, we saw a steady stream of our existing owners stopping by to say hello. Tom from Harebell, David from Keepers and Alan from Rib all first met us at Groundswell last year. Since then, they’ve joined Farm Locations and have already welcomed recces and film crews onto their farms.
There’s nothing quite like seeing people face to face, and Groundswell brings together farmers from every corner of Britain. Wales, Scotland, Cornwall, Kent, Northumberland – they were all there. We even met farmers from Transylvania, Estonia, France and Finland asking if we could help them too. One day perhaps… but we’ve still got Britain to cover first!
Then there are the people discovering filming for the very first time.
“How about Gordon Ramsay in your barn?” is how we grab their attention.
It usually raises a smile.
“I’ve never thought about that.”
“I didn’t realise productions were looking for working farms.”
“My farm wouldn’t be interesting enough.”
We hear those comments time and time again.
Then, almost in the next breath, someone will tell us about a television drama that filmed on their farm in the 1960s, or a TV commercial they hosted years ago.
What always strikes me is how vividly people remember it.
They remember the convoy arriving. The organised chaos. The scenes being filmed. The stories they tell afterwards. Decades later, they still talk about those experiences with enormous affection.
Hosting a film shoot isn’t something people forget.
As always, Groundswell also introduced us to more remarkable farms. A holding on Hadrian’s Wall. Miles of private coastline. Community farms. A wild buffalo farm. The new gems keep on surfacing.
At one point, I found myself talking to farmers from North Wales, Devon, Cornwall and Shropshire all at the same time. Dairy farmers, potato growers, flower growers and woodland creators, no matter their main enterprise, they are all curious about whether their farms could also become film locations.
That curiosity gives us enormous encouragement.
Beyond the farm gate
It wasn’t only farmers who stopped by.
Over the two days, we spoke with film-makers, authors, teachers, scientists, nutritionists, food buyers, researchers and advisers. The whole food supply chain was there. That’s another reason Groundswell’s such a vital event in the farming calendar. It’s no longer simply a farmers meeting place; it’s a place where people from very different worlds, but all interconnected and in need of collaboration, gather together and start joining the dots for the future.
Every one of those conversations left us with another idea.
Why we keep coming back
Every year, Groundswell reasserts why Farm Locations exists.
Our role isn’t simply to find rural places for productions to film.
It’s to help connect two industries that don’t naturally cross paths easily enough.
The creative industries are looking for more sustainable ways of producing, and an authentic human connection, in touch with nature, is becoming more real.
Meanwhile, farmers are caring for landscapes with centuries of history, producing our food, restoring wildlife and finding new ways to build resilient businesses for the future.
The more time we spend at Groundswell, the more convinced I become that those two worlds have far more in common than either industry realises.
Looking ahead
We left Groundswell feeling optimistic.
Not because farming doesn’t face enormous challenges – it clearly does – but because so many people are choosing collaboration over division.
Scientists learning from farmers.
Doctors learning from growers.
Researchers listening to landowners.
Everyone bringing something different to the same conversation.
For me personally, Groundswell always feels a little like coming home.
I grew up in farming, spent my career in marketing and property, and somehow those two worlds have come together in Farm Locations. Every year, Groundswell reminds me why that matters.
I want to help film, TV and photo productions connect more meaningfully with the soil beneath their feet, the food those landscapes produce, and the countryside that quietly grounds us.
At the same time, I want to keep supporting the farmers who care for those landscapes and their heritage every single day.
If Farm Locations can continue building those connections between storytellers and land stewards, then I think our work is worthwhile.
Thank you to everyone who stopped by our stand, shared your stories, challenged our thinking and encouraged us to keep carving our own path.
