Tom Cope

Farmer and Cattle Breeder

[Sama Hoole @SamaHoole]

Jeremy Clarkson made £144 farming a thousand acres in his first year.

In year six he lost five thousand.

His own words to his land agent: dispiriting enough to clear a hundred and forty-four quid at the start, and here we are six years on, down five grand. The harvest had been projected at thirty-seven thousand profit. Weather and prices took it.

Now look at what that thousand acres has behind it that yours does not.

One of the best land agents in the country. A farm manager who has worked that ground since he was a teenager. A farm shop with a queue down the lane, a pub, bestselling books, more than a quarter of a million in subsidy across three years, and a television production paying for the entire thing to be filmed.

It is the most commercially advantaged thousand acres in Britain, and the farming still loses money.

That figure should end every conversation about British agriculture, and it is the one number that never makes it onto a campaign graphic. Not the glyphosate. Not the pig housing. The margin.

Because everything people object to on a farm grows straight out of it. The field pushed to the very edge. The hedge that came out because the government paid to have it removed. The shed instead of the yard. The supermarket contract signed below cost because the alternative was no contract. Nobody intensified out of malice. They were priced into it over sixty years by a policy that decided cheap groceries mattered more than a countryside, and by a retail sector that kept the difference.

Britain now grows around sixty per cent of its own food. More than a third of British farmers are past sixty-five.

The man with the Amazon cheque cannot make a thousand acres pay.

The seventy-year-old with three hundred and no film crew is doing it anyway, and being told by people who have never sold a tonne of anything that he is the problem.

[Tom Cope @TomCope5]

@RugbyTigers Stolen 50 quids worth of me So much for loyalty

[ClarksonsFarm @ClarksonsFarm1]

His father once told him, “Son, farming is in your blood.” 🌾

He believed it with everything he had.

At 26 he took over the family farm — young, hopeful, and ready to work harder than anyone who came before him.

He kept that promise for fifteen years.
Now he’s 41 and looks a decade older.

His hands are split and calloused from the cold. His back seizes up every morning before the day even starts. He’s missed birthdays, school plays, family dinners and anniversaries that can never be replayed.

Every Sunday night his wife does the accounts at the kitchen table.
Last Sunday she sat there for a long time without speaking.

Then she looked up.

“We’re forty thousand pounds down this year.”

After fifteen years of early mornings and late nights, diesel has doubled, fertiliser is up 60%, electricity has tripled… and the price he receives for his wheat is almost exactly what it was in 2015.

He is not lazy.
He is not incompetent.
He is not failing.

The system is failing him.
And every Sunday night his wife still sits at that same table, staring at numbers that only ever seem to get worse.

How long before Britain loses an entire generation of farmers who simply can’t afford to carry on?

[Tom Cope @TomCope5]

@LeicesterTigers @WayfairUK Will we now get some better seating in bar and Plaza please ?
Then we can enjoy a pint and gourmet burger in comfort 🍺🍔🤞

[Tom Cope @TomCope5]

@HolsteinUK Great chance to get into some iconic families

[Holstein UK @HolsteinUK]

Sponsored content as part of the Breeder Advertisement Package

Advertise your herd to over 4,000 breeders from as little as £95*. To advertise your herd in the Journal, contact [email protected]

*Prices start from £95

[Tom Cope @TomCope5]

Fantastic opportunities

[Holstein UK @HolsteinUK]

Sponsored content as part of the Breeder Advertisement Package.

Advertise your herd to over 4,000 breeders from as little as £95*. To advertise your herd in the Journal, contact [email protected]

[Holstein UK @HolsteinUK]

Sponsored content as part of the Breeder Advertisement Package.

Advertise your herd to over 4,000 breeders from as little as £95*. To advertise your herd in the Journal, contact [email protected]

[Tom Cope @TomCope5]

@HolsteinUK Great Opportunity !

[Tom Cope @TomCope5]

@LeicesterTigers Can’t book car park college block C online so have spent two hours on phone to no avail

[UKDairyDay @UKDairyDay]

UK Dairy Day 2025 Reveals Lineup of Cattle Show Judges 🐄🏆🐄

Top cattle show judges from around the UK will be in Telford on Wednesday 10th September to officiate at UK Dairy Day 2025.

🌐Read more online: https://t.co/n2LCk86xBB

#UKDairyDay #CattleShow

[Farmers Weekly @FarmersWeekly]

BRILLIANT. 😂😂😂

🎥 Coppenagh House Farm

[Betano UK @Betano_UK]

We're giving away FIVE PAIRS of tickets for 𝐀𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐧 𝐕𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚 𝐯 𝐁𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫𝐧 𝐌𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐡! 🤩

To enter:
📲 Follow @Betano_UK
🔁 Share this post

#AVFC

[Tom Cope @TomCope5]

Great opportunity to get into top families

[Holstein UK @HolsteinUK]

Sponsored content as part of the Breeder Advertisement Package.

To advertise your herd in the Journal, contact [email protected]

[UKDairyDay @UKDairyDay]

Two weeks to go until UK Dairy Day at Telford on Wednesday 11th September!

Top 5 reasons to visit.

1. Over 280 trade stands
2. Cattle Show
3. Industry panels and seminars
4. Practical Demonstrations
5. Industry in one place

https://t.co/tZnjf4vqLV

#UKDairyDay

[Tom Cope @TomCope5]

Well Deserved

[Massey Feeds @MasseyFeeds]

Another great result for Drointon Holsteins this week having won the Staffordshire herds back in July

The herd have then gone on this last week to win the regional herds putting them into the final 6 herds in the whole country and the winner is to be announced at @UKDairyDay

[Benonwine @benonwine]

Retweet if you are Proud to be Christian.

[ꨄHΣRΣ TΩ βΣ ΣΠTΣRTΔIΠΣDꨄ @PAMsLOvE]

I recently spent $6,500 on this registered Black Angus bull. I put him out with the herd but he just ate grass and wouldn’t even look at a cow. I was beginning to think I had paid more for that bull than he was worth. Anyway...I had the Vet come and take a look at him. He said, the bull was very healthy, but possibly just a little young. 😂
so he gave me some pills to feed him once per day. The bull started to service the cows within two days……. all my cows! He even broke through the fence and bred with all of my neighbor’s cows! He’s like a machine! I don't know what was in the pills the Vet gave him ... but they kind of taste like peppermint. 🤣’

[Benonwine @benonwine]

Retweet if you are going to wear a poppy this year?

[Tom Cope @TomCope5]

Well Deserved

[FarmingUK @FarmingUK]

🥇🐄 Cornwall-based Wills Brothers Ltd of the Willsbro herd have been crowned the winners of the 2023 Holstein UK Premier Herd competition 👏

https://t.co/MYYv38g3rj