Over the past month, Nuffield Scholar and former writer in The Scottish farmer, Claire Taylor, has continued her global farming tour, this time on her own patch, with a tour of the East Coast of the UK.

She spent time meeting with farmers, researchers, packers and processors, with her travels taking her from Lunan Bay down to Norfolk as part of her studies.

Some of her visits included a tour of Arbikie Highland Estate and neighbouring Upper Dysart Larder, a meeting with the team at the JHI in Invergowrie, a tour of ABP’s Perth abattoir and an afternoon at Glenrath Farms, hearing all about its laying operation.

Venturing south, she covered everything from cut flowers to commercial pigs, a cow-on-calf dairy operation selling raw milk direct to consumers, had a private tour of the impressive glasshouses of Dyson Farming and visited the National Nature Reserve at Holkham, hearing first-hand about the estate’s conservation journey, from director Jake Fiennes.

Commenting, she said: “This gives you just a small flavour of some of my amazing visits over the past few weeks and I am so grateful to the individuals who took the time to organise visits and discuss my research topic, ‘Turning the tide on the anti-farming agenda’.

“My take home from these invaluable conversations is that there is way too much mudslinging within our own industry, when really, we should be presenting a unified front, embracing the diversity of the people and practices that shape our countryside.

"We also need to be more open to the scrutiny that sometimes lands on our door, some of it is poorly misinformed, but a lot of it is curiosity from our customers, let’s seize this as an opportunity, not a criticism and be more open about sharing what farming has to offer,” she said.