Milking it: the farmers turning YouTube into a cash cow | Life and style

Name: Ian Pullen.

Age: 57.

Appearance: Daily.

Occupation: Farmer/YouTuber

That’s an odd combination. Not really. Pullen is a Gloucestershire farmer who films his working day and posts the videos on YouTube.

That’s not odd? It’s very popular. He has more than 38,000 subscribers to his channel, where he goes by the name of Farmer P.

What does he do in the videos? Basic farming stuff. Drilling winter wheat, unloading fertiliser, tagging new calves.

And people really watch that? He gets between 10,000 and 20,000 views for each of his videos, and he puts up a new one almost every day.

What’s the appeal? It’s quite soothing, and people seem especially fond of his dog Biskit.

No, I mean, what’s the appeal for him? Farm work must take longer when you have to film everything. Money.

You mean the videos bolster his farm profits? They are his farm profits. Pullen says he makes more money from YouTube than he does from his cattle.

Really? How does that work? He claims he can make as much as £2,000 a month from his channel. “It’s a form of diversification,” he told the Derby Telegraph. “Some farmers open bed and breakfasts; some open a cafe. This is my version of that.”

Are all farmers finding it necessary to diversify to stay afloat? This year has been especially difficult, thanks to low rainfall, labour shortages and the soaring costs of feed, fuel and fertiliser.

Is Pullen the only one using YouTube this way? By no means. Irish dairy farmer Adrian Morris has 76,600 subscribers to his channel, where a typical offering is titled “Retro Fitting a Mastek Dribble Bar to an Old Abbey Tanker”.

I don’t understand what any of that means. You will by the end of the half-hour video. But basically he’s putting a new spreader thingy on his old slurry tanker.

And the videos are what’s keeping these farmers afloat? Merseyside farmer Olly Harrison told Bloomberg he made £55,000 from YouTube last year, while his farm made a loss of £240,000.

Holy cats. In addition, farm revenues are seasonal, while YouTube posting offers a steady income. Pullen earned enough to pay for a new barn.

So filming yourself farming is the new farming. Yes. And if things get any worse, watching YouTube farmers will be the new eating.

Do say: “Hit the like button, press subscribe – I need a new gate.”

Don’t say: “Read the script, you stupid cow!”