How Good Is Vertical Farming? (Your Radical Questions with James Rebanks)
Radical with Amol Rajan
BBC
4.5 • 919 Ratings
🗓️ 24 November 2025
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Farmer and author James Rebanks is our first guest to answer your questions. He tackles everything from what consumers can do to support British farmers to whether sheep farming should go the way of coal mining, and how to reduce obesity in the UK.
He also discusses his experiences at school, going to Oxford University in his mid-twenties and how his education has shaped him.
Send us your questions for Jamie Oliver:
* WhatsApp: 0330 123 9480 * Email: radical@bbc.co.uk
Amol Rajan is a presenter of the Today programme on BBC Radio 4. He is also the host of University Challenge on BBC One. Before that, Amol was media editor at the BBC and editor at The Independent.
Radical with Amol Rajan is a Today Podcast. It was made by Lewis Vickers with Anna Budd. Digital production was by Gabriel Purcell-Davis. Technical production was by Dave O’Neill. The editor is Sam Bonham. The executive producer is Owenna Griffiths.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.6 | Hello, well, this is a bit of a radical experiment. |
| 0:09.4 | This is our first listener, Q&A with one of our absolutely brilliant guests. |
| 0:13.9 | Your chance to engage directly with the super smart and interesting people that we have on this podcast |
| 0:18.6 | and ask them about their radical ideas for the future. |
| 0:21.9 | Let me just explain briefly. |
| 0:24.0 | So our plan at Radical is to try and give you a heads up about who we're planning on talking to |
| 0:28.5 | and the things that we're planning to talk to them about. |
| 0:31.2 | And that gives you the chance to ask questions of our guests. |
| 0:34.6 | We're after compelling questions and of course some radical solutions. Coming up, |
| 0:39.1 | by the way, the next few weeks on radical, I'm absolutely thrilled to say that I'm going to be |
| 0:43.3 | talking to Jamie Oliver. Chef campaign, I don't need to introduce him. Jamie, we know who he is. Jamie Oliver |
| 0:48.8 | is going to be answering your questions. He's got some very big ideas about cooking, about healthy eating, |
| 0:53.6 | also perhaps |
| 0:54.2 | about dyslexia, which he's talked very openly about as well. What questions do you have |
| 0:57.9 | for Jamie Oliver? Please email us on radical at BBC.co.uk. You can WhatsApp us on |
| 1:03.6 | 03330-12394480. The Radical team reads absolutely everything that gets sent in and we basically need you for this podcast. |
| 1:16.2 | It's basically your chance to get much more intimately and deeply involved in what we're doing and get really close to our guests. |
| 1:22.5 | Right. Let's get into our first ever radical Q&A with the farmer and author from the Lake District. |
| 1:28.3 | James Rebanks is the author of several bestselling books, including most recently The Place of Tides |
| 1:32.7 | and also his memoir, The Shepherd's Life. |
| 1:35.9 | James, welcome to this monumental moment in the history of British culture, podcasting, the creative economy. How does it feel to be the first radical guest to answer questions from our listeners? It feels good. I'm glad you started with the farmer. Feels like a good moment we can build from the bottom up, can we? From the field up. Right. Our first question, James, for you, comes from one of the people who asked us to get you on the show. By the other, I should say, the reason I didn't even say, the reason you're here is because you were very much in demand. |
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