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00:09I'm so excited.
00:10I know, you've been bouncing around like a three-year-old
00:13for a month over this.
00:15Have you ever been?
00:15No.
00:16Oh, it's so good.
00:22Did you really have your hair cut this morning?
00:257 o'clock this morning.
00:26To go to an agricultural machinery show?
00:29Well, not necessarily. I was getting my hair cut anyway.
00:30It would fall on every six weeks.
00:32But then I thought, OK, if I'm going,
00:34I'm going to book it on the Wednesday in the morning,
00:36have my hair done, and go.
00:39When you're up early and you're fresh...
00:41I've been to probably 50 motor shows in my life
00:43in Detroit, Geneva, Tokyo, London, Birmingham.
00:48And I've never had my hair cut today.
00:49Well, that's why you always look scruffy.
00:52Lisa's going to be furious, by the way.
00:54Why?
00:55Because you've got this.
00:56I've nicked her car, and she said...
00:58She said last night,
00:59I've got to go to London tomorrow.
01:01What's she driving?
01:01So I said,
01:02Are you going on the train or driving?
01:04She said, no, I'm going to drive.
01:05And I was drawing breath to say,
01:07Oh, I wanted to use your car to go to Birmingham.
01:09You didn't have it in you to say anything?
01:10I just went, oh, OK.
01:11And then you took her car?
01:12No, no, we left before she was up.
01:13So she's going to go out.
01:35Every January, for a few days, fields right across the country have no farmers in them,
01:43because this is the time of year when they go to Birmingham for Lama, the annual farm machinery show.
01:52Look at the amount of pick-up trucks going to the NEC. Now, this is a proper look at this
01:58chap here.
01:59He's got it all worked out. No styling happened with that roof on his pick-up.
02:03No, but it's designed to fit in a lot of dead sheep.
02:06Exactly.
02:10Once inside the vast halls, Caleb became as excited as I used to be at motor shows when I was
02:18eight.
02:19Oh, look at the CR9. That's where they had the CR11 last year. This is a smaller version of it.
02:26I can't work out why they've got... This is a CR... It's CR990.
02:30I know. It says that.
02:32It's nice, isn't it? I like the colour. It's got black rims.
02:35Yes. Oh, look at that. And it's got the blue around the outside.
02:37That's cool, that. That's me. That's a bit of me, that.
02:41What is? That.
02:44Look at it, it blinged up.
02:46I, meanwhile, felt like my sister used to feel at motor shows when she was eight.
02:52Completely baffled by everything.
02:55What's that?
02:59This is a great start.
03:05A mower?
03:06Nearly. It's a mulcher.
03:08Oh, is it?
03:08Yeah.
03:09What's that?
03:12Erm...
03:13Muck spreader?
03:14No.
03:14What is that?
03:14That's a straw blower. What's that there?
03:17Pile driver.
03:19Log splitter.
03:20What's that one over there, then?
03:22It's a tedder.
03:23It's a what?
03:24It's a tedder.
03:25So, you mow your grass.
03:26You come through with the tedder, flips it back over.
03:29You see what I mean?
03:30No.
03:31Caleb?
03:32How you doing?
03:32You doing well?
03:33Yeah, not bad, mate.
03:34Good to see you.
03:35Where is the old...
03:36There he is.
03:37How are you?
03:38You all right?
03:39Yeah, not too bad.
03:39Caleb, just endlessly stopped by big-boned man with stout shoes on.
03:45Pauses only to tell me things that make no sense.
03:51Later in the morning, I lost my guide, because he'd been booked to take part in some sort of rural
04:01ted talk.
04:03Hello, everybody.
04:04I'm Caleb, probably best known as on Clarkson's Farm, but of course I've got my own theatre tour that I
04:09did at the beginning of the year.
04:10I've also got three books out.
04:12As he humbly introduced himself, I walked around in a state of complete confusion.
04:21What is that?
04:24And what's that?
04:28And that?
04:30Oh, look, a lunar rover.
04:34It's just what it's like when you walk around without Caleb.
04:36It's like being in a...
04:39I don't know, a market in Cambodia, where you just look at all the things and think,
04:43Oh, is that a fish?
04:44Is it a plant?
04:46I don't know.
04:50Eventually, I arrived in a hall full of futuristic high-tech equipment.
04:56Where I expected to be even more baffled.
05:01But once the salesman got his teeth into me, I became quite intrigued.
05:08Have you ever seen something like this before?
05:10No.
05:11What is it?
05:12It's a seeding and weeding machine.
05:14It's an autonomous vehicle, electrical driven.
05:17It's powered by the solar, yeah.
05:20In Denmark?
05:22Solar.
05:23Solar, yeah.
05:24On June the 7th, 1981, there was a sunny day there.
05:27Exactly.
05:28But what if there's no sunshine, which does happen?
05:30It does actually run 24-7.
05:33It has a battery pack in the back, so it's running in the night too.
05:36So then, how's the weeding and seeding?
05:38Basically, this is a seeding machine, it's a weeding machine, and it's all done by GPS.
05:44How accurate is it?
05:45Accuracy between 8 and 10 millimeters.
05:48Oh, my word.
05:49What's the phallus?
05:51This one, that's the GSM antenna.
05:54So what's that then?
05:55That's the GPS antenna.
05:56And the last one here, that is the rain gorge.
05:59So if it suddenly starts raining, let's say one millimeter of rain, it will just stop the operation to avoid
06:06damaging the crops.
06:08And then you, of course, get a message back saying, okay, it stopped due to rain.
06:11Oh, you can talk to it.
06:13Yeah, yeah, yeah.
06:13So you're looking on your phone or your tablet or on an app, then you can see, you know, if
06:19it's running out of seed, it will stop and send a message back, hey, Jeremy, I'm out of seeds.
06:24So my recommendation is to choose the high value crop.
06:28It could be onion or beets or red beets.
06:32Onions?
06:32Yeah.
06:32Are onions high value?
06:34I would say so, yeah.
06:35If you filled those up with onions, how big a field would it do before it ran out?
06:40You can seed at least five hectares.
06:42That's no problem.
06:43So that's what, 12 acres?
06:45We're doing five hectares a day.
06:48That's brilliant.
06:50Meanwhile, over in the TED talk, Caleb was in full life coach guru mode.
06:56Dreams don't work unless you do.
06:58I take that with me all the time.
06:59You can do it.
07:00And no matter what you do, if you keep working hard, and again, dreams don't work unless you do, you
07:03can make that happen.
07:05So I think actually believe in yourself and actually just go, yeah, you are good enough straight away from the
07:09get-go.
07:09Don't ever believe that you're not.
07:11And if you're not, it's fine.
07:12You're just not meant to be and not meant to be doing that certain thing.
07:17Back in the future, having been bewitched by a machine that could plant crops without the need for a tractor,
07:24I'd now found a tractor that had no need for a driver.
07:28So this is probably the first in the market that is a fully autonomous tractor that we can let go
07:34night and day unattended.
07:36So it just runs?
07:37Runs night and day, set it off, go to bed, get up in the morning, job done.
07:41You set it up to drill?
07:45Yeah, cultivate.
07:46So standard rear linkage, so you can put all your existing implements on.
07:49Standard hydraulics, front linkage, just everything that you need.
07:54How fast will this one go along?
07:56Is it just like a normal tractor speed?
07:58Yeah, so 0 to 12.6 kilometres an hour.
08:02Okay, so fast enough to do normal farming.
08:05Fast enough, absolutely, normal work, yeah.
08:06So it can do normal farming.
08:07Yep.
08:08Without Caleb.
08:10A tractor with no aggravation.
08:12Imagine that.
08:13Oh, and no Caleb.
08:14No Caleb.
08:16Just imagine.
08:19My mind was now racing with all sorts of new ideas.
08:26Which the following day I couldn't wait to share with Charlie.
08:34Farming does what it does year in and year out.
08:38Yeah.
08:39We are reaching a point where that's just not working anymore.
08:43The climate's changing and we have a truly idiotic government.
08:47So it's like beating your head against a wall.
08:50Idiotic government and it never stops raining.
08:53There's no point doing what you do year in, year out.
08:57It's just the definition of idiocy.
08:58It is.
08:59Is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
09:02Yep.
09:02We've now reached a point where farmers, I think, have to say,
09:06we have to do this differently.
09:08Yep.
09:08So, there it is.
09:14An ag bot.
09:16Yeah.
09:18You're going to have a driverless tractor.
09:21I'm not a very good tractor driver.
09:24I've come to understand that after five years.
09:26I can't plough.
09:27I can't cultivate.
09:28I can't drill.
09:29I can't attach anything to it still.
09:33Once that thing's plodding around doing cultivating or drilling
09:36or whatever job you've given it.
09:38Yep.
09:39You can be getting on with something else.
09:41And it doesn't make mistakes.
09:43Unlike me.
09:45Um.
09:46Okay.
09:46Do you have to mark out obstacles in the field as well, presumably?
09:50We haven't really got any obstacles in our fields.
09:52We don't have trees.
09:53We've got one telegraph pole that I hit.
09:56There are five in that field.
09:58Are there?
09:58Will it lift everything?
10:01It looks quite compact.
10:03They must have written what its lifting capabilities are.
10:06Did you not ask?
10:07No.
10:08I just thought it looked really cool.
10:11And that brings me on to seeding and weeding robot.
10:19But that's going to do the planting?
10:21Ah.
10:21Not of the onions and beetroot.
10:24We don't grow onions and beetroot.
10:28We're growing onions and beetroot.
10:29Yeah.
10:32Why onions and beetroot?
10:34Because that's what this can do.
10:36So the tech does it, so we're growing it?
10:39I want to see if it does it.
10:48While Charlie went off to source this new kit,
10:52I decided to go to the Netherlands
10:54to look at the high-tech farming that they're doing over there.
11:02At first, this felt odd.
11:05Because normally when I'm on a road trip with a film crew,
11:08I'm accompanied by Hammond and May,
11:11who are also seasoned globetrotters.
11:15This time, though, my companion wasn't.
11:30Is the air, like, the same here in France?
11:35Is it different?
11:36Do you smell different, like...
11:38Do you mean, like, is it dense?
11:39Is it...
11:39Is it different?
11:40No, it's not.
11:41It's the same.
11:43It's going to feel weird leaving England.
11:45We haven't left it yet.
11:46I know, but...
11:46When we get to there...
11:47You're still in Oxfordshire, I think, actually.
11:49I know, I don't think we are.
11:49You haven't even left Oxfordshire yet.
11:51That's what's going on in my mind.
11:54You know, when we get over there, it's an hour ahead.
11:56Is it?
11:57Mm-hm.
11:58How?
11:59What?
12:00How?
12:01It just is.
12:05But how?
12:07Apart from Portugal, France, Spain, Italy, Germany,
12:10all of Europe, really, is an hour ahead of us.
12:13Will I get jet lag?
12:15No, it's something like when the clocks go back and forwards in England.
12:19Oh, OK.
12:23As Ranul finds an eye headed towards the Channel Tunnel,
12:26I explain the thinking behind our fact-finding mission.
12:31So, when I was at Lama, I started to realise
12:34we've got to get more tech.
12:38We've got to get more modern.
12:40Well, here's the deal.
12:42I once did that programme.
12:43Who do you think you are?
12:44Well, you trace your family tree.
12:46Mm-hm.
12:47And I discovered that I'm from this family called the Kilners.
12:50OK?
12:50It was my great-grandmother was a kilner.
12:52And they had this huge company that made glass.
12:56Huge.
12:57Massive.
12:57They had two factories, each of which covered an area of 17 acres.
13:01Holy moly.
13:02They're big.
13:03Wow.
13:03You bought anything in the world made that was in glass.
13:06So, a gin sling in Singapore, a bottle of pills in Texas.
13:09It almost certainly came in a bottle made by the Kilners.
13:13Yeah.
13:13They were massive.
13:15Anyway, they didn't modernise.
13:17Right.
13:17All these little glass makers were coming along using modern technology.
13:21Yeah.
13:22And before you knew it, Kilners had gone because they didn't...
13:26They were stuck in the past.
13:27They were stuck in the past.
13:28Yeah.
13:29And they were wiped out.
13:30And they were wiped out really quickly.
13:31So, I think diddly squat's got to get a bit more techy.
13:35Yeah.
13:35I think that's what I'm saying.
13:37And in Holland, they're very fastidious in their farming as far as that can work out.
13:42I think I was reading the other day that they're the most efficient farmers in Europe.
13:46Really?
13:46The Danes and the Dutch.
13:48Yeah.
13:57I've got butterflies.
13:59Have you?
14:00Yeah.
14:05What number plate's that then?
14:07Dutch.
14:08Is it?
14:09NL.
14:09What does it mean?
14:11Netherlands.
14:15E.
14:17Portugal.
14:20Denmark.
14:21D.
14:23Germany.
14:25What a D.
14:26Deutschland.
14:28You'd have thought they'd put G on it for Germany, wouldn't you?
14:31Hmm?
14:31You'd have thought they'd put G on it for Germany.
14:33Yeah, but they call themselves Deutschland, remember?
14:36Why?
14:37That's what they're named for themselves.
14:38But everyone hates Germany.
14:49Leaving England.
14:51You see my passport?
14:52Look how shiny it is.
14:54Shinier than mine, probably.
14:56Ooh, blue.
14:57I know!
14:57You've got a blue one.
14:59Let's have a look at your passport.
15:01Yeah, you look like a crim.
15:03Your middle name's Wayne, I didn't know that.
15:06How ridiculous.
15:07What do you mean how ridiculous?
15:08It's just funny.
15:11Once we cleared passport control, Wayne started asking me about the actual tunnel.
15:19How deep is it?
15:22Um, well, it's not...
15:24It's underneath the bottom of the sea, if that makes sense.
15:29So it's quite deep.
15:31I mean, psychologically, you know you're under the sea,
15:34but it's only the same as being in a tunnel.
15:36You've never been in a tunnel, have you?
15:38No.
15:40God.
15:41How many trains are down there?
15:43I don't know.
15:45How many carriages does it pull?
15:46Don't know.
15:48How many cars does it fit on a carriage?
15:49I don't know.
15:51When was the Titanic?
15:52When was the Titanic?
15:541912.
15:56OK, so this was after the...
15:58This was obviously...
15:59Well, after this.
16:00This was 1988.
16:06Holy shit, how wide is it?
16:08The train's quite wide.
16:14And here we go, we're out mounting the train.
16:19It's weird to think this is the first train you've ever been on,
16:22I bet not many people are able to say that the first train they ever went on
16:28was a Eurostar train.
16:32You can get out.
16:34Stretch your legs.
16:37I want to stay here.
16:38What?
16:39You don't want to get out?
16:40No.
16:43You do look nervous.
16:44I fucking am!
16:47How'd they put oxygen down there?
16:50What do you mean?
16:52How'd they get oxygen flowing through the...
16:54It just goes...
16:55It's not sealed at the end.
17:00If there's two holes at either end, it's full of air.
17:04Yeah, but surely you've got to push the air down there.
17:07No.
17:07Air rises up.
17:09No, it doesn't.
17:11Air goes in any direction it wants.
17:13If you go so far under the sea, air doesn't travel through water.
17:17You're not...
17:18No, but either end isn't under the water.
17:21We're going into a hole which is above...
17:24the ground.
17:25Above the water.
17:30Exactly.
17:31So, let's say this is the sea, yes?
17:33Yeah.
17:33The hole starts here...
17:35Yeah.
17:35..and here and goes down like this.
17:37Yeah.
17:37The air's only going to fill here.
17:39There's air in the tunnel, Caleb, I promise there's air.
17:42You don't need scuba outfits to cope.
17:45There will be air.
17:47Oh, we're moving.
17:49Here we go.
17:52There we are.
17:58Luckily, the tunnel didn't spring a leak or run out of oxygen
18:02on that particular journey.
18:05And half an hour after setting off, we were in France.
18:10You're abroad.
18:12I'm out of England.
18:16It felt weird, didn't it?
18:18Well...
18:18They think five years ago, they?
18:20I know, five years, you're not even out of Chippy Norton.
18:22Now, look at you.
18:23You're like James Bond.
18:24Ha-ha!
18:29We crossed the border into Belgium
18:32and eventually reached our overnight halt in the city of Bruges.
18:40Which I was keen for Caleb to see.
18:50Oh, wow.
18:51This is what abroad is like.
18:54Everywhere's like that.
18:55That's very pretty, isn't it?
18:56Yeah.
18:57Abroad is pretty.
18:58I thought you'd be like Carl Pilkington coming abroad, but you're not.
19:02You're actually liking it.
19:03Well, it's just nice.
19:04I don't know.
19:05It's just the views.
19:05Look at it.
19:06Yeah.
19:07It's really nice.
19:09So, they've actually got some of Jesus' blood in there.
19:14It's the only example, I think, in the world.
19:17I don't know how it is.
19:18Well, now, let's not get bogged down with how they know things.
19:23I mean, it's like barred up.
19:25Well, it would be.
19:26Imagine if you stole Jesus' blood.
19:29What would it be worth?
19:30I mean, I think if you took it to the market and Chippy Norton said,
19:33this is Jesus' blood, they probably wouldn't believe you.
19:36Don't mean to fuck off.
19:40Oh, look.
19:42Now, I like this bit here.
19:44You can see down the canal, look.
19:46That's really pretty.
19:48Wow.
19:51It's so beautifully lit, isn't it?
19:55Oh, look.
19:57It's a crocodile, is it?
20:05No, they don't have crocodiles here.
20:14The next morning, we set off to the Dutch border to meet our first high-tech farmer.
20:20And I was very much looking forward to this.
20:24What he's doing is, it's very old-fashioned farming.
20:27Know your farm, know every square inch of your farm.
20:29But use modern technology to get the best out of it.
20:35I've got really excited about this streamlining deadly squat.
20:40It needs it.
20:41It does.
20:42We're busy fools at the moment.
20:44That's a good way of putting it.
20:46Oh, I know why.
20:47I know why we're busy fools.
20:49Is it me?
20:50Is it me?
20:51Yeah.
20:51Yeah, I thought it might be me.
20:53Well, I wanted to try lots of different types of farming,
20:55and I've tried them all now, and I realised...
20:57Really? You wake up and go,
20:57So, I know, today, pigs.
20:59Yes.
21:00And you know what?
21:00We're going to put them in the most furthest place on the farm,
21:02away from the farm.
21:03Yeah, that was a mistake.
21:04And they've eaten and killed all the trees.
21:06I know, what about goats?
21:07Let's get some goats.
21:08Yeah, I know.
21:09Oh, I like the goats.
21:10I know what we'll do with them.
21:11We'll move them around and fence it off in areas
21:13and build that shelter 3,000 times a year.
21:17But they're great animals.
21:18I know what we're going to do now.
21:19I want chickens in that wood over there,
21:21but I don't want to see their huts,
21:22so put them on the other side of the fence.
21:24Yeah.
21:25I did do that.
21:25But we'll only get 50,
21:28and have them all in three different pens.
21:30Yeah, we did do that.
21:30That's not a bad idea, that.
21:33I did do that.
21:35Well, they're three different types.
21:37They can sort of still run together.
21:44On the way, we stopped to fill up.
21:47Well, let's have some Super 98.
21:49Super, yeah.
21:51And as the petrol station had a chip van,
21:54I introduced Caleb to Belgium's national dish.
21:59Because the French fry was invented in Belgium.
22:01Was it?
22:02Yeah.
22:03You're never more than six feet from a bag of chips.
22:06What are they?
22:07What are they?
22:09Meatballs.
22:10Meatballs?
22:11Cow.
22:11Cow.
22:12Beef.
22:13Beef.
22:14Oh, okay. Yeah.
22:15One of those and it's a bag of chips.
22:18Yeah.
22:19And then you've got to put mayonnaise on them.
22:21Fine.
22:21You've seen Pulp Fiction.
22:23Pulp picture?
22:24What do you mean?
22:25Pulp Fiction.
22:28Oh, God.
22:32Thank you very much.
22:37Mmm.
22:38You need balls.
22:39Thank you very much.
22:53Oh no, I'm going to pay you.
22:54How much is it?
22:54It's a...
23:00We know your earlobes are completely see-through.
23:12After Wayne Ramsay had given his verdict on the meatballs,
23:16we reached our first farm,
23:18which straddles the Belgian and Dutch border.
23:22And there we met its gigantic owner, potato farmer,
23:27Jacob van der Born.
23:29Good to meet you.
23:29I told you everyone in Holland was tall.
23:31He's very tall.
23:32I feel very short now.
23:33Yeah.
23:34Even taller than you.
23:38Jacob's farm is about the same size as Diddley's Squat.
23:42But judging by the amount of equipment he has in his city-sized sheds...
23:48Jesus.
23:49It's unbelievable.
23:51It was clear he was a lot more successful at turning his acres into cash...
23:57...than we were.
24:00You've got parking spaces in your sheds for your tractors.
24:03And look at those trailers. Look at them.
24:06The sprayers there, that's unbelievable.
24:08That's your chemical sprayer and that's your liquid fur.
24:11Actually, it's a twin tank system.
24:14Oh, wow.
24:14So we do 9,000 litres of...
24:17It's two sprayers in one, Caleb.
24:19Look at that.
24:19Oh, wow.
24:20So we can do two sprays in one go.
24:23Look at his little face.
24:23That's unbelievable.
24:24You're going to need a trolley for your cock.
24:28So this is variable 8.
24:30Tyres, inflating system.
24:31So you can let the tyres down and pump them up while you're driving along.
24:35Actually, all my tractors, most of them, also have inflating tyres.
24:40Okay, if everything in here is half a million euros, which it probably is, except for the stuff that's more.
24:45It's 10 million quid in the shed.
24:4720 million?
24:48You're right.
24:48You're here.
24:49Oh, yeah.
24:49Oh, yeah.
24:51So, and again, a two tank system.
24:55Look, I'm going to be boring.
24:57I'm going to talk about this floor.
24:59This floor is designed so that air can come up from underneath it.
25:03So if you store potatoes or whatever you want to store on it, they're ventilated from underneath.
25:08How much does that cost?
25:10I could smell the potatoes now.
25:13This is what our storage room looks like.
25:16Holy shit.
25:18Jesus Christ.
25:19Should I give him a football or three?
25:21This shed can hold 6,500 tonnes from the 32,000 tonnes of potatoes that we can store in total.
25:29Fucking hell.
25:30You know, we could put all our barns in this barn.
25:33I know.
25:34And my house.
25:35Yeah.
25:35And all of Chaddington.
25:37Is that another Fent?
25:39Yeah.
25:41I should explain.
25:42We keep seeing Fents.
25:43Lots of Fents.
25:44Huge Fents.
25:45They really are the sort of most expensive tractors you can buy.
25:50They're like high-end Mercedes-Benz tractors.
25:53And he's got three in every shed.
25:58All from there.
26:00Because he's adopting the future.
26:06Unsurprisingly, Jacob also has one other piece of equipment.
26:12And chips for breakfast.
26:14Chips again.
26:15Thank you very much.
26:17After Caleb had finished his second breakfast,
26:22Jacob then explained how he'd made his farm so successful.
26:27When I went in my fields, when I started this, I took over the farm from my father in 2006.
26:33I went to one field and I harvested 30 tonnes on one spot of potatoes.
26:38The other past, same field, same seeds, same, everything the same.
26:4390 tonnes.
26:44That's a difference of 60 tonnes in one field.
26:47And what was causing that?
26:48And that's what we're going to figure out.
26:50So in 2009, we then started precision farming.
26:54So a lot of people talk about...
26:56All farmers like to know the quality of their soil.
27:00But Jacob takes this job to another level by using specially developed equipment
27:08to give him ultra precise readings from under the ground.
27:15So everything in the soil that conducts, so organic matter, that's water, that's nutrients.
27:21Every part in the soil that is conducting is giving me the data back.
27:26Do the scan, process that data and you'll get that map.
27:31Oh, is that a field?
27:32That's one of my fields.
27:34The red spots there are more conducting and therefore bigger in yield.
27:40Once he knows where the weakest and strongest patches of soil are,
27:45Jacob can then programme his tractors to fertilise and seed each part of the field
27:51according to its need.
27:55My tractors, I programme to be automatically detecting the soil.
28:00Then they do the job and at the end when my driver drives off the field,
28:04the tractor recognises, are you done?
28:06So you tell the tractor to do different things in different parts of the field, the same field?
28:13Yeah.
28:15Seeding, fertilising, that's all variable rate.
28:19And when it comes to tackling unwanted weeds,
28:23he doesn't carpet bomb the field with herbicides like we do.
28:27Instead, he uses his high-tech maps to do precision spraying.
28:33We can actually detect those spots and actually only kill those weeds without touching the rest.
28:41So they're spraying, see, it just goes and when it sees a weed...
28:45That's future.
28:47So if you're not spraying the chemicals onto the crop...
28:50So you will have a higher yield.
28:52And then you're saving maybe four grand a year for a herbicide bill.
28:56So you're not wasting money on any, not even a square metre of the field.
29:02This is NASA levels.
29:05And Jacob's methods don't stop at soil mapping and programmable tractors,
29:10because he now uses drones to spray the fields.
29:14If you look into the future in 50 years or something, we will have tractors.
29:19But a lot, a lot of it will also be drones.
29:23And he had to deploy some admirable cunning to get round some very strict EU laws.
29:30There was only one problem, Jeremy.
29:32It's not allowed to fly drones in Europe.
29:34It's not allowed to fly them by computer.
29:37It's not allowed to fly and let them swarm and let them work together.
29:40There is actually, you cannot do anything.
29:43So did you know what we did?
29:45I started in an airport.
29:48What?
29:48I can fly whatever I want.
29:51Well, you just made your farm an airport.
29:53I made my farm an airport.
29:56That is so cool.
30:00Outside, he offered to demonstrate his spraying drone,
30:03which was not what you'd call small.
30:10Jesus.
30:11If you'd crash-landed that on a playground...
30:14Yeah, you'd be.
30:16It would be on the news.
30:18How much spray does it?
30:20So we have a tank of 50 litres.
30:23And how much would this field need?
30:25And that will be one hectare and we can do that in eight minutes?
30:29I normally spray about 125 to 150 litres a hectare.
30:32So you could programme it to come back to the yard.
30:34You just top it up and it goes back out to whatever field we're doing.
30:38I don't want to do that, though.
30:40I know you don't, cos you like driving tractors.
30:42Yeah.
30:42But as a man who's about to embrace the future,
30:45I need to be looking at this ship.
30:48Once its tank had been filled with weed killer,
30:51Jacob punched in all the information it would need
30:53for its spraying flight.
30:56Lots of codes.
30:57How much litres are we going to spray?
30:59Which pressure? Which droplet size?
31:07Nice.
31:08Now he's spraying now.
31:09See?
31:11Oh, wow.
31:15So he's now doing the first run.
31:19Stops at the headland.
31:24Makes the turn.
31:26I'm amazed.
31:28And I'm not...
31:29You're not touching anything.
31:32Bloody hell.
31:35I'm just so embarrassed by our drone.
31:40Which is just pathetic.
31:42But this is actually how 80% of the world is going to spray their crops.
31:47Has to.
31:49Oh, Caleb, that is impressive.
31:51If it's really hot on a summer's day, I can't...
31:53I'm ginger.
31:54I can't stand outside and hold that.
31:55He can sit in the car.
31:57He can sit in the car.
31:59If I apply to have an airport at Diddley Squat,
32:02there will be one objection from him.
32:07So he's done that field in five minutes.
32:10And then he'll come and land where he started.
32:12Automatic landing.
32:16Fucking hell, Caleb.
32:17That is impressive.
32:18But also, think how quiet that is.
32:21My tractor's quiet.
32:23Not as quiet as that.
32:26Reluctant though he was about welcoming in the new world order,
32:31as we drove away, Caleb had to give Jacob his due.
32:37That's serious farming.
32:40Yeah, that man was a serious farmer.
32:42He was a serious farmer.
32:43If he's got 32,000 tonnes of potatoes a year at £250 a tonne,
32:51that's £8 million of the potatoes every year.
32:54Yeah.
32:54I mean, the kit was just ridiculous.
32:58My mind is still...
32:59There's so much information that comes into my mind.
33:02So, having introduced Caleb to some brilliant Dutch farming,
33:07I decided, as we headed towards our overnight halt,
33:10to introduce him to some brilliant Dutch music.
33:17That bass.
33:27I've been driving all night, my hands went on the wheel.
33:30What's that country feel to it?
33:33It drives my heel.
33:36It's my baby calling and says I need her here.
33:41And it's a half past four and I'm shifting gear.
33:44Ha ha.
33:46Ha ha ha.
33:46Come on.
33:47When she's lonely as long, it gets as much.
33:51She sends a cable coming in from above.
33:56Don't need a pump at all.
33:59We've got a thing about to hope.
34:02Read our love.
34:04We've got a wave in the air.
34:08Read our love.
34:12Bonjour, monsieur.
34:13Chamapau, Caleb.
34:14What?
34:15Bonjour, monsieur. Chamapau, Caleb.
34:17Ooh!
34:19Do you know I learnt that?
34:25The following morning, we headed over to our next location.
34:28Oh.
34:30And it was mind-boggling.
34:35Because it's a dairy farm.
34:38On water.
34:42Slap-bang.
34:43In the middle of Rotterdam.
34:50Hello, hello.
34:52How are you?
34:53How are you?
34:54Nice to meet you.
34:56Nice to meet you too.
34:57Nice to meet you too.
34:58Very welcome with our farm.
34:58This is wicked.
35:00It's the only time I've ever seen him smile in a city.
35:03The floating farm is the brainchild of Peter van Wingerden and his wife, Minka.
35:09And although it's in a city, don't for one minute think that it's some kind of industrial battery farm operation.
35:19Sea cows.
35:21Correct. Sea cows, yeah.
35:23The cows are free to wander about in the feeding area or go ashore for a graze.
35:33And as for milking, they keep their own timetable.
35:38Is that walking in to be milked then?
35:41Yeah.
35:42So the cow knows when it wants to be milked and just walks in there?
35:46Absolutely.
35:49So this is completely automated. You can just go home and watch TV and...
35:52Exactly. And we have many cameras over here as well, so we measure everything.
35:57Temperature, wind speed, relative humidity, if the cow is laying down, if she's standing up, if she's eating, if she's
36:03inside or outside.
36:04Because it's what we call a free-range cow, so she can...
36:08How many are there?
36:09About 30.
36:1030.
36:13Although the farm covers less than an acre, its output is staggering.
36:18On the floor below, the milk is pasteurised or made into butter.
36:24And then below that...
36:27Cheesery.
36:29An underwater cheesery.
36:32How much concrete have they got in this country?
36:35How does it stay afloat?
36:37Is this floating or are you mounted to the...
36:39No, it's completely floating.
36:41It's floating?
36:41It's completely floating.
36:42So we are now three metres below the sea level.
36:45Which keeps it cool.
36:47Temperature is completely controlled.
36:50But even more impressive is the way this farm and the city work together.
36:56When Peter goes out delivering his dairy produce, he comes back with brewers grain from the breweries
37:03and yesterday's unsold stale bread from the shops, none of which costs him a penny.
37:09And then that is made into food for the cows.
37:16Look at that.
37:17And this is, what, a day old.
37:19Two days.
37:20We're wasting so much bread and now it comes to us.
37:24Because the amount of waste in the city when you think...
37:26It's unbelievable.
37:27Organic waste.
37:28Unbelievable.
37:29As for the grass that's used to feed the cows, that comes from a very clever source.
37:35So when they cut the grass in the football stadium, you take the clippings.
37:40Yeah, from the main pitch.
37:43The best grass you can get.
37:44They put seaweed on it and everything, don't they?
37:46They make it look green, so therefore the nutrients out of that grass must be insane.
37:49Yeah, it's really good.
37:50Well, because you're here, you can just go and grab it all each morning and...
37:54Exactly.
37:55So this is the circularity of the city.
37:58And this circular efficiency goes even further.
38:02Because Peter has a robot that collects all the manure.
38:06And that manure is then used to make drinking water for the cows.
38:12We take seawater out.
38:14So we've got a desalination plant.
38:16This is our desalination.
38:17And it goes to this side of the membrane.
38:19And we heat up the other side of the membrane by using the cow dung.
38:25So if you put cow dung in this bin, we put seawater in here.
38:30It heats up to 35, 40 degrees.
38:32You can feel it over here.
38:34So we have...
38:34So they're drinking seawater?
38:36Yeah.
38:37Correct.
38:38And you use their manure to desalinate it?
38:41Correct.
38:43We're using and reusing everything.
38:45Organic waste from the city to turn it into proteins again.
38:49So yes, this is the future of farming.
38:55Fuck.
38:56Fuck.
38:57This is just...
38:58My mind is in overdrive right now.
39:00It's about to blow up.
39:07Outside, sitting by the solar panels that power the whole operation,
39:12Peter then showed us the building materials he was also making out of the manure.
39:19So what do you do with this?
39:21So this could be an inside wall.
39:23Insulation.
39:24Insulation, yeah.
39:25So you could have your house insulated.
39:27Yeah.
39:27Your house would be literally full of shit.
39:30Correct.
39:30People say mine is anyway.
39:32It is.
39:33I'm rarely amazed.
39:36Lamborghini Revuelta amazed me.
39:37And that's been it for the last year or so.
39:40And that's taking virtually nothing from the environment.
39:43Exactly.
39:44And it's giving more back.
39:45It's almost zero footprint.
39:47It's amazing.
39:48We actually want to reduce food losses because food losses is dramatic in the world.
39:55We're losing so much food.
39:56About 30% of all food produced is lost in the world.
40:00Yeah.
40:00While still one billion people doesn't have food.
40:02So we need to change this.
40:04And this can only be done if you produce local.
40:06So what we've established is Diddly Squat is in the wrong location because it's in the countryside.
40:14It's not floating.
40:16It's where there are fields that's wrong.
40:23Obviously, I couldn't relocate Diddly Squat to the River Thames.
40:29But spending time with these ingenious Dutch farmers had convinced me that if we're going to survive,
40:38we absolutely had to modernize.
40:48This is the remote control toy you always wanted.
40:51Oh, my God.
40:52What is that?
40:54We have a problem.
40:55Get out of the mix, man, will you?
40:56Are you going to stay?
40:58I don't know.
41:01It's been a long time.
41:02I'm back, mate.
41:03You're back.
41:05That's a bit of a man again.
41:05You're going to be able to get the other side of it.