' MOST EXCITING TIME TO BE AN AGRICULTURAL ENGINEER' with Dr Mark Moore

Hello, I'm Chris Biddle and welcome to Inside Agrita, featuring those lovely folk who are engaged at the heart of the.

Farm and grass machinery industry, known collectively.

As land based engineering.

And thank you for joining me.

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So without any further ado, let's get on with this terrific episode.

In my five years of talking to a range of people engaged in or connected to land based engineering, I've heard many inspiring stories of their journey into this industry and this episode is no exception.

In fact, I think it's one of the most extraordinary and it may indeed go a long way to answering that question.

Are agricultural engineers born or are they made?

It features someone who left school at 16 with one o level and that in metalwork, who just rediscovered the power of education, who faced a life threatening illness in his early twenties, but whose drive and tenacity has propelled him through the ranks, in a non military sense, of course, to a key international role with one of the biggest names in agricultural machinery.

My guest today is Doctor Mark Moore, the director government affairs for the AgCO Corporation in Europe and also the current president of the Institution of Agricultural Engineers.

Mark, a very warm welcome to inside Agriturf and thank you for joining me.

Let's start at the beginning, right back to your early days.

Did you come from a farming background?

Yes and no.

So my father was in car sales, but the rest of the family was in farming.

So I grew up in north Essex in a little village called Styston, which I'm sure a lot of people have never heard of, but it was working on farms as a child and whatever.

So yes and no, I think is probably the answer.

And when you were growing up, what was schooling like?

Were you a good pupil?

Were you interested in school?

Yes.

The practical side, yes.

But the academic side, I guess you could say no.

So I think most people regarded me as a sort of a practical student rather than an academic.

My only real qualification from school was own level metalwork, believe.

Oh, congratulations.

I walked out of school with O level metalwork.

Those that remember O levels, as it were.

No, I will remember O levels, thank you very much.

If you weren't academic, what was your ambition when you were at school?

Did you have any ideas what you were going to do in later life?

Yes, go back into agriculture.

Having worked on farms as a child, I drove, actually, Massey Ferguson Tractus, from 16 years old, as it were.

So the idea was to try and get back into farming somehow.

And I left school at the first opportunity at 16, and got a job with, actually, a Massey Ferguson dealer called eastern tractors in Braintree as a fitter, so as an apprenticeship fitter.

But unfortunately, that was in the early eighties and I don't know if you remember, it was not a very good economic situation and I was actually made redundant before I started.

That was a good first move into the job market.

So, although my first job was in a dealership, we didn't really get going as such.

And unfortunately, the redundancy happened the week before I was due to start.

And this was a played out of school.

I was left with a real dilemma as to what to do.

And as I said, the economic situation wasn't good, unemployment was high, and so I decided to go back to school.

So, having walked out with O level metalwork, I then went back to school and did a bit more academic qualifications and made up for lost time.

And where was that mark?

That was in Braintree.

So all up in north Essex, as it was?

Yeah.

So I actually walked out a year later with eight o levels.

So I did make up for lost time.

And from there.

From there I went to.

Got a job as a land surveyor in London.

I had a friend, Niffland and associates, and they were growing.

They were doing a lot of survey work for Sainsbury's.

At the time.

Sainsbury's was growing as a brand, they were opening up stores and we did a lot of work for Sainsbury's.

So I did a year at Iffland and associate as a trainee land surveyor.

But for someone with an interest in machinery, was that satisfying?

No, not really.

So I really left farming and I guess I was exploring different avenues at the time, but I missed farming.

But I think the main problem was the commute to London that was getting on top of me.

So working in London and commuting daily in and out was.

Yeah, not something that I really aspired to do for the rest of my life, for sure.

How long did you stay in that job and what happened next?

So I was in that job for a year and during that time I decided to go to Rykirkwood College to enter back into agricultural engineering.

So Rykerwood College was one of the local tech colleges in Thames, Oxfordshire, where I enlisted for the ond the ordinary national diploma in agricultural engineering.

And given the fact that I now had eight o levels under my belt, the staff there at the time pushed me into the analytical ondezenhe.

So that's where I ended up.

This was going back early eighties, 82, I think it was, that I started at Rykir.

Had you got the bug then for further education?

Yes, I was learning about things that I was interested in, which I'm not sure it was the case at school, so I think that was the advantage that I had.

I was generally interested in agricultural engineering and the farm machinery sector in particular.

And yeah, I was learning an awful lot about engineering and tractors and combines and yeah, it was a good time.

What was it that piqued your interest in agricultural engineering particularly?

I know you'd had an interest in your younger days, but as you grew into it, did that interest and commitment to the industry to grow?

Yes, I think my ambition levels have grown over time as well, to complement that.

But I was always interested in working on the farms and the farm machinery aspect of farming really interested me.

There was chances to go into farm management, as it were, to actually go farming as opposed to going into the sort of the machinery world.

But I think I was leaning more towards the machinery at the time.

And as I say, I think my ambition level was quite moderate, I guess you could say, at the time.

But it's grown over.

Yeah.

And from Reichert Wood, Mark, from where then?

Actually, I did four years at Reykit Wood.

I did the ond and stayed on for the HND and then from there I went to Silso.

I guess ambitions were growing.

I applied for a job at John Deere in Langer, as on the service side after I completed my OMD, but I didn't get it.

I got to the last two, but didn't get it for whatever reasons.

But I think that sort of stimulated me to extend myself a bit more, which is why I then looked at the degree at Silso, the agricultural technology and management course, as it was.

Did John Deere like you?

I hope so.

I was very lucky to get to the last two, as I say again, unemployment was quite high, so there was a lot of candidates that applied for the position.

So the fact that I got to the last two was quite an achievement in its own right, I think.

And so the specific course at Cilso, that was at Cilso and obviously part of Cranfield University?

Yes, yeah.

What was the actual course that you took?

It was very much very high academic course.

Yes.

It was called agricultural technology management.

So the ATM, as it was known as within the college, was a very broad course.

So I was very conscious that I did a lot of engineering at Rycote Wooden, so doing a sort of a B engine, carrying on that engineering, I thought, would maybe restrict my thinking a bit.

So I decided to broaden a bit more into this ATM course because it included aspects of not only engineering, but also of agriculture and biology and things like that.

So, yeah, it was a bit more diverse, not just pure engineering as such.

And where were your ambition levels then?

Did you really have a goal in mind?

Yes, to try and get back to one of the major manufacturers.

So in my last year, it was an honours course, so we were all tasked with doing a project.

And in my final year, I developed links to Massey Ferguson and I did something called a lost sales analysis.

So it's basically interviewing dealers as to why farmers had bought a competitive brand from Amassi Ferguson.

But I think the important thing about that was it enabled me to establish links to people within Massey Ferguson at the time, even though I was still a final year student.

And I guess as you went out into the dealer land, you increased your networking skills and ability.

Yes, and the thing that I'm proud of is that I have a very practical background.

I've worked on a lot of farms, even through my college years.

I always worked on farms during the holiday periods, so obviously harvesting is the obvious one.

But I've worked on farms all over UK, silaging in the Easter holidays and things like that.

So, yeah, I've been very lucky.

And so did this lead to a permanent employment with Massey Ferguson?

It did.

So, in 1990, I joined Massey Ferguson in the training centre at Stoneleigh as a technical training instructor.

Actually, my first job was to demo mf combines.

So this is sort of July.

So I left Silso on the Friday, enjoying massive focus on the mandate in July, and they were just looking for demonstration drivers to go out and support the demonstration network on Monday.

I think maybe one day later, I was asked to go over to Suffolk and resume control of a Massey Ferguson 34 combine at the time and start demonstrating, which put me in my element, because that's right.

Back to my practical side.

I understand, Mark, that around this time you had something of a major health scare.

What happened?

Actually, it was a couple of years earlier while I was at Silso.

Halfway through my degree, I actually fell off my motorbike and broke my arm.

And during a routine, I thought to put some plates in it and doing a routine chest x array, they discovered a mass in my chest and it turned out to be a tumor.

And, yeah, this is halfway through my degree you need to be aware of.

And they basically told me I had two years to live, so I was 24 at the time.

That focuses the mind, doesn't it?

It certainly does, but I think when you're young and enthusiastic and full of energy, you don't.

It doesn't really mean much.

It sounds odd, but I think you just think.

You're joking, aren't you?

Here I am.

I'm fit and healthy and very active.

What are you talking about?

But anyway, they.

They insisted that they had to do an operation in order to get this tumour out, so I ended up being six weeks in the London hospital or the Royal London Hospital, as it's now.

Now I'm having some quite major surgery.

I got through it and, as I say, the most important thing is I'm still here to told the tale, as it were.

Yeah.

And were the colleges understanding of your situation?

Very obviously.

Still at the time, I did negotiate with the hospital that they had to do this in a holiday break.

So it was actually the Easter holidays in 1988 that they had me in for the six week period, as it were.

So I didn't miss any studies at the time.

But when I did get back to Silso, unfortunately, they discovered that the surgery wasn't that successful and I had to undergo a lot of radiological treatment.

But that required me going down to Southampton General Hospital.

Yeah, that really did disrupt, because I didn't have any choice then.

But I have to say that the staff, Professor Dick Godwin, Simon Blackmore, all these people were very supportive of me at the time.

Excellent.

So as your career started to grow within Massey Ferguson, the AGCO takeover was, I think, 1994, wasn't it?

Was it on the cards in advance of that?

Was there sort of knowledge within Massey Ferguson?

And this might well take place?

I think, like every huge company, there's rumors.

Yes, there was hints of it.

COd already been established through the acquisition of Massey Ferguson, North America and Massive Ferguson was owned by a corporation called Varity, the variety corporation at the time, and I think Variety were looking to diversify that they owned another company called Kelsey Hayes, which was into automotive projects, anti locking braking systems and things like that.

So the impression that we got as employees that varity were more interested in developing that side of the business rather than farming.

Yeah, so I think that's probably how it all came about, as it were.

And, of course, shortly after the formation of AgCO, there was a dreadful aircraft crash, of course, in England, which claimed the life of a couple of Agco executives, and that must have been a real sort of shaker at that time.

It was a real shock.

There was four founders of Agco, two of which were on that aircraft that crashed at Birmingham airport.

So we lost 50% of the founders of AgcO at the time.

So, yeah, it was quite a sad.

Time within the company, and I think that one of the founders, the chairman, Robert Ratcliffe, then took a back seat, and the Martin Richenhagen, who cut his teeth at class, to a certain extent, joined and I had the pleasure of meeting him several times.

A very forceful character.

Was he very much a driving force in your early days?

Yeah, he was very good for the company, in my opinion.

We were still growing through acquisition, so we were still buying our companies and I think Martin was what AG needed.

Bob had obviously done a good job with getting the thing up and running and bought various brands, but I think Martin continued that strategy to put us in a very strong position, which we were at today.

Yeah, and of course, in that period, we're talking about the third and fourth age of agriculture currently, but precision agriculture was starting to emerge as a real option for farming techniques, wasn't it?

And were you involved in that?

Yes, I was very lucky to be involved at the very start when I joined Massey Ferguson in 1990, and I mentioned that I was a combine demonstrator.

That particular combine had a yield meter on it, didn't have gps, but it had this yield meter and it fascinated me, just driving this combine up and down the field and seeing the variations on the yield meter.

And that really got me interested in sort of the yield map inside which was in the pipeline.

And during that year, Massey Ferdson gave me responsibility for the sort of the yield mapping system and from that they supported me in a PhD.

So I think I'm right in saying that I'm the first person to ever got a PhD in precision farming as a combine driver?

As a combine driver, yes, but these were very early days, as you can imagine.

And did that fascinate you?

Yeah, I've always been interested in technology, but also the application of technology.

So getting some value from it again, using my agricultural knowledge and some of the experience that I gained on farms, I was able to translate some of the data and the information that we're getting into, some actions that we were trying to do on farms.

And that also formed part of my PhD.

So it wasn't just a technical PhD, it was trying to look at the application of the technology as well.

So I worked very closely with the farm staff at Shuttleworth, which was aligned with Siltso College.

So the two organizations are the same organization in some respects.

So the staff at Shuttleworth, they gave me some of their fields to go out and start doing precision farming on.

I mean, we're going back to the early nineties here.

Yes, yes.

And are you pleased with the progress that precision farming has made within these last, what is it, 30 years or so?

Still a long way to go.

Still a long way to go, yeah.

So the short answer is no.

So I think given the contribution precision farming can make to food security, sustainable farming, I think we can do an awful lot more.

Believe me, we're not there yet for sure.

So when you and my evidence for that is the adoption rates.

So when you look at the adoption rates of the technology, then I think they're relatively slow within farming.

And I'm not blaming farmers penny structure the imagination, as I say, there are a number of reasons behind that, but, yeah, we can do more for sure.

Yeah.

And so this engaged you through the late nineties into the two thousands, did it?

What were your roles then?

So, as I say, I started off in Massey Ferguson as a training instructor.

So I did that for four years, which is where I started my PhD in precision farming.

From that I stayed within the Massey Ferguson network, but within product development.

So after becoming in this training instructor and PhD student, then I was pushed into, or asked to go into product development to manage that sort of the precision farming system or the field star system as it was now known, within the massive phase network.

So it was about trying to define requirements, understand what products and services farmers required, what technology we could develop.

So working very closely with the marketing teams, the sales teams and engineering and trying to deliver the things that farmers were telling you that they needed to happen in order for them to be successful.

So that was a very interesting role.

Yeah, I bet.

And was this all based in the UK?

Did you have opportunity, as we came into new millennium to travel very much or work abroad?

Yes, so I've been so lucky in my career.

I've worked and farmed all over the world.

So, as I said, I'm very keen on the application of the technology.

So I'm very eager to talk to farmers, understand the things that they're trying to do.

And I've managed to do that all over the world, including the weird places like Russia and Australia, New Zealand, Japan.

Yeah.

North America, South America.

I've been so lucky, it's unbelievable.

Yeah.

And I understand you then had a secondment in Africa.

Yes, I guess the technology, in some respect, reached this plateau where.

And I had an opportunity to go to Africa and start a project called the Future Farm.

So this is more about the application of technology and mechanization than perhaps developing the engineering aspect of it.

And the future farm in Africa, which is just north of Lusaka, in Zambia, we assembled a group of stakeholders companies, Bayer crop science, for example, Seedco, Yara fertilizers.

And they will work together on this farm to try and figure out how we can use technology, agronomic practices and knowledge to do things better.

So it was a real team effort, and that really opened up my knowledge about the power of working together.

If you can work together, then you can make an awful lot more progress than working in silos.

So that was a really important lesson for me to.

And how long did that last, Mark, how long were you out there?

I was out there for seven years.

Were you?

Yes.

Yeah.

And I know I talked about Zambia, which is where the farm was located, but actually I was lucky enough to work all over Africa, so.

Yeah.

And what was your main takeaway from those seven years in Africa, specifically about.

Africa, is that Africa has an enormous potential to feed the world.

So the land.

A lot of people say that Africa hasn't got a lot of moisture.

Sub saharan Africa has.

I think the potential is there, and the people are very enthusiastic, they're eager for knowledge.

So when you go to visit farmers and rural areas, you always tend to get a very welcoming when you appear.

Yeah, it's a nice area to be in.

Excellent.

And now, if we come up to date, Mark, you are the director of government affairs for Agco Corporation Europe, which is not bad for a guy with one o level in metalwork.

No, it's not, is it?

Eh?

No.

A very grand title.

What's your responsibilities within your current role?

So I think I've gained, through my career as an agricultural engineer, I've gained a lot of knowledge and experience and visited an awful lot of places.

And I think what ICO wanted to do is to use that knowledge and skills to try and figure out if there's anything we can do to influence policymakers.

The role is really trying to work between our senior staff and some of the policymakers.

And one of the ways we do that is through trade association.

So I work very closely with the European Trade association court Seema, which is based in Brussels.

And what we try and do as an industry then is formulate position statements, things that we want to see happen.

And part of my role is then to try and convince the policymakers that this is something that they should be listening to and hopefully adopt and do to help things move forward, as it were.

So that's what it is in a nutshell.

And is it a political role at all?

It is, because obviously we're working with policymakers a lot of the time.

There's two ways we can do this, is, is to try and understand the things that the policymakers are doing regarding regulations or directives around the things that impact AGcO's business.

So emissions is a good example.

So we all know that diesel emissions, that the regulations are getting tighter, and so that's the sort of thing that we deal with there.

But the other more exciting aspect is looking at farming, because there's an awful lot of regulations around farming.

Is there anything that we can do to help farmers implement the various regulations and such?

So it's quite a diverse role in that respect.

And does it vary within Europe, depending what governments are in power at the time, what parties are in power, how ambitious you can be in your plans?

Yes, the political framework, particularly in Europe, is quite complex.

So if you have the Brussels and the EU Commission, which is what we tend to work with more often than not because they're the central organization, they're the guys that sort of set the framework for all the other member states to work within.

But it's up to the member states to then take the framework that's been created in Brussels and figure out how they're going to implement it, which is why you get this diversification.

And agriculture, I think, is one of the more complex because you can imagine farming in Malta is completely different to farming in Finland.

So you need that ability to try and adapt the framework that comes out of Brussels to meet the local requirements.

And you referenced the importance of trade associations, and you were elected as president for this current term of the institution of agricultural Engineers.

That's I agri, what do you see your role as president?

And indeed, what is the role of IAgRI itself?

The role of the institution of agricultural Engineers is to try and promote professional qualifications of agricultural engineers.

We try and promote some knowledge transfer.

So there's a various series of meetings.

We got our annual conference coming up on the 6 November at Rothamsted and it's really trying to promote the network of agricultural engineers and establish ourselves with some sort of qualifications and recognition that we can get through some CNG type initiatives and such.

So, yes, yeah, and if we look at the role of agricultural engineers and engineering from a fairly non academic student school days in Essex through to where you are now, what lessons have you learnt?

We've only got 40 minutes.

What lessons have you learned on your journey from those school days to today?

Is there a sort of key element that actually sums up the whole thing?

Mark?

Yes.

Be prepared to adapt, so be flexible, so don't go out there with any preconceived ideas.

Look, learn, listen and get things formulated in your mind as to how we can overcome some of the challenges, but do it in a dynamic way.

So, as I say, don't shut the door on anything.

There's no such thing as a bad idea, just that some are better than others.

So explore all the various opportunities that you got.

So, yeah, be flexible, be prepared to adapt, be prepared to listen and try and understand what the challenges are, not just from your perspective, but from others as well.

Indeed.

And if I were to ask you, what role do agricultural engineers.

We all talk about feeding the world, and feeding the world encompasses a lot of disciplines, of course.

What role do agricultural engineers play in that whole process of feeding a growing population?

We are critical.

So I think this is a personal opinion, but I think farming in general, which obviously agricultural engineering is linked to, is underrated, undervalued.

I've never had a time where I've not walked into a shop and there's been never been food on the shelf.

So every time I've walked into a shop, not only food, but a wide choice of food as well.

And I think expectations are there.

So consumers, when they walk into a shop, they expect food to be there.

My parents grew up in the second world war and they experience rationing.

So they've, I think, a bit more appreciative of farming than perhaps we are today, my generation, because of that.

So they experience rationing, food shortages and things like that.

I'm not saying they went hungry, but they haven't got the sort of the stability or the free choice that we enjoy today.

So I think we need to try and get back to the point where we appreciate farmers more and more.

And I think agricultural engineering can play an important part, particularly around this sustainability challenge.

Farming and agriculture not only emits carbon emissions and other things, but it also has the ability to absorb as well.

So we know we can store a lot of carbon in soil.

There's not many other industries that can do that.

And I think agriculture, engineering are then you sort of the overarching profession that links all these bits together.

One thing that I've observed, when we are in discussions in Brussels, for example, and you've got various stakeholders around the table, policymakers, other people within the food chain, inevitably they all end up looking to us as engineers for solutions.

So the agronomists, for example, or the food retailer, the policymaker, the fertilizer man, they all look at us for the sort of the technology or the engineering solutions.

So we're really the glue that sort of holds all this together in some respects.

And I think the opportunity for us is to think about the way we can build systems.

So I think the terms that I like to think about are vertical versus horizontal integration.

So I think as a sector, as a machinery sector, we're pretty good at the vertical stuff.

So we all collaborate on PTO charts, three point linkages, there's some electronic standards that are emerging and things like that.

So we're really good at talking amongst ourselves.

What we're not necessarily good at is talking in this horizontal environment where we reaching out to food retailers and trying to understand their challenges and data standards or whatever it might be, and what we can do to work together.

So I think that's the opportunity here.

But there's only one group that's going to do this, and that's engineers.

We are ultimately going to have to do the things that people want to do to solve the challenges that we all face.

Yeah, there was one famous occasion back in, I think, was 2012, when there was a report commissioned on the future of food production and the foresight report.

And I think agricultural engineering was almost completely ignored until the institution of agricultural engineers jumped up and down very vocally and there was various changes and amendments and such.

Do you remember that time?

I do, and I was involved in the amendment that went to the foresight report.

But it's hard work getting our voice heard in a lot of these discussions.

The UK has the national food strategy document that was done by Dimbleby a couple of years ago, and it has some really good conclusions.

But the point is, there's lots of talk about technology and innovation, but no talk of engineering.

And it's almost as if the assumption is there that this stuff is going to occur.

So you can put it in a report, and because it's in a report, it'll happen.

It won't happen unless the engineering community get behind it.

I think there's a role there to work with people, to come up with strategies that enable us to do some of the things that the policymakers and others want to do, because I think their aspirations are really good.

You can't disagree with what they're trying to do.

I think everybody understands that food security, climate change are some of the huge challenges that we all have to face.

But ultimately we have to do something.

We got to figure out how we can work together to overcome these challenges.

And engineering is going to be a central part of that challenge.

Overcoming those challenges.

You talked earlier about the rate of adoption.

There's some very bright technology, sophisticated technology going into machinery these days.

What do farmers want?

Do they understand the new technology?

Do they make best use of it?

Or they're not concerned?

All they want it to do is work.

There's.

So 35 years ago, technology was more of an interest, I think, probably than anything else.

And in some respects, I think farmers regard it as a bit of a gimmick.

But today that's changed.

So farmers need technology.

They understand they need technology, and they see technology as part of their business.

So they always use iPhones or iPads, for example.

So I think a lot of consumer electronics has driven that sort of adoption as well.

So the expectations are there.

What farmers want is simple technology, and that's where we've got to get better.

I think as both with this vertical and horizontal integration that I talked about, farmers are not good systems integrators.

What they are good at is farming.

So a farmer wants to buy a piece of technology, he wants to push a button and go farming.

He doesn't want to push the button and then have to call somebody because the data won't go from a to b.

So we've got to get much better trying to build systems rather than delivering individual products.

So they're not really worried about all the clever stuff that goes on under the bonnet or under the cowling.

All they want is one single action that they can rely on.

Exactly.

And if it doesn't work, the farmer will just flick the switch off and revert back to what he did previously because they won't.

We all know that farming, farmers have a lot of time, a lot of pressure, time pressures to get the job done.

This harvest has not been a good harvest weather wise.

So you can't spend 3 hours in the corner of a field trying to figure out how to get data from a to b, you got to jump in your combine and go combine it.

So we have to get better at that.

And I think we're getting there, don't get me wrong, there's the agricultural electronics foundation.

So the vertical integration element I think is coming along.

But I'm also aware that a lot of people farmers work with agronomists and food retailers, policymakers influence what farmers can do.

I think there's a role there for us as engineers to try and smooth out some of those bumps and blips as well.

Data is going to be at the center of this a lot of the time, I fear, because farmers are going to have to pass data to various organisations in order to make decisions, better decisions or get the subsidies or whatever it might be.

I think what you're saying, and you referenced the I agree.

Upcoming, I agree just now and I will put a link to the details in the show notes to this podcast takes place on the 6 November Rotham said.

And looking down the list of speakers, I think that horizontal aspect of everything you're talking about, because you've got speakers from the food and drink federation, you've got agronomists, you've got the head of CIMA, your trade association, livestock and a farmer, obviously key to the most important person, and indeed the senior agricultural manager for Waitrose Farms.

So rich you are spreading out across the agricultural sector quite widely, aren't you?

I think we have to, and I think this is an attempt to try and get the membership involved, I think with justification.

We complain that we don't get the recognition that we want.

So this is an attempt to try and spread the word that we want to be here to help and listen and be part of the solution, but above all to contribute.

So the speakers are going to come to us and hopefully they're going to sort of stake their requirements and get us thinking about how we can try and join all these things together on behalf of the farmer.

So the farmer does end up with a system and not something that he has to call somebody and try and figure out how it can work.

Let's work together to make it simple.

So it really will be a window on the wider world of food production and so on.

So really, from food to farm to fork, really?

Yes.

And I think, as I said earlier, I think engineering touches every part of the food production system, but we can't sit in our silos anymore.

We got to figure out how we can talk to one another and understand the impact of my silo on the bit before and a bit after, and how we can smooth out those bumps and blips.

So when it does end up on a farm, that it does actually work.

So this is what we're trying to achieve, and I think we need to manage expectations.

We're not going to solve all the issues in one afternoon at Rothamsted.

But what I want to do is to get people thinking a bit more about systems and understanding some of the challenges within the food chain that we need to try and think about.

Because, as I said, ultimately, we are the engineering community that's going to have to try and solve some of these issues.

There's so much opportunity.

So I get very passionate about this.

There is so much opportunity here for agriculture, engineering, but we can't keep doing things for the next 30 years that we've done for the last 30 years.

We have to change, we have to be more open and inclusive.

We need to be more systems orientated.

So, yeah, so I don't think there's ever been a more exciting time to be an agricultural engineer, given the challenges that we face and the fact that a lot of people in the food chain are looking to us to help create the solutions to get us there.

There's never been a more exciting time to be an agricultural engineer.

That's a really nice sort of sum up, mark, and I really do thank you for a fascinating trawl through your career and agriculture and engineering in general.

And lastly, a lot of people are engaged with Jeremy Clarkson as he makes a complete hash sometimes of farming, but it gains public opinion, public attention, and whether he's getting his Lamborghini tractor stuck somewhere.

Do you think he's a hero or hindrance to the appreciation of farming to the general public, who may think that their chicken comes in packages anyway and nothing to do with livestock?

I think he's a hero to the general public, I would say.

And the reason for that is because he's putting farming on the agenda, is creating awareness, and I think we need more of that awareness within the consumer and such like Doctor Mark Moore.

I really enjoyed this conversation and we've ranged very quickly through a very impressive career.

And congratulations on that and your recent appointment.

So, can I thank you once again for joining me.

No trouble, Chris.

And as I say, pleased to discuss.

As I say, I don't got all the answers, but I'm willing to try and talk to people to get some.

Excellent.

Thank you.

There is nothing more that I can add to mark Moore's account of his journey.

For it proves once again that agricultural.

Engineers are a massively resourceful and talented bunch who are the glue to unlocking so many of the challenges of feeding the world world today.

I'm Chris Biddle.

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Inside Agritaf.