A club formed in 1946 to get the latest research into farmers’ hands is still doing exactly that. Matt Gue, Chair of the British Cattle Breeders Club (BCBC), joined Andrew and Sarah to explain what the club stands for and why beef and dairy breeders keep learning from each other. Matt is a vet whose family are behind the well-known Huddlestone Holsteins in West Sussex, and he was clear that the conference is for farmers: research that can be used on farm now, not pie in the sky.

The 2027 conference, Breeding for a Brighter Future, runs from 25 to 27 January at the Telford Hotel & Golf Resort. Matt previewed a Beef Day focused on feed efficiency, with Lee Leachman coming over from the US to talk about Stabilizer cattle. Dairy Day is built around breeding for better cow outcomes, from heat stress in dairy housing to using trimming data to tackle lameness. This year’s Monday afternoon workshop is run by the British Embryo Transfer Association and covers getting started with embryo transfer and getting more from an existing programme. Matt makes the case that ET still carries a stigma as a tool for pedigree breeders, when it has a real commercial place.

The conversation also covers genetic diversity and creeping inbreeding, why phenotype data still matters, and Matt’s view that the next five years will blow the last fifteen out of the water, from gene editing to using TB test results as breeding data.

Conference details and booking are at www.cattlebreeders.org.uk/conference/

This episode was recorded remotely in September 2026, and all information was correct at the time of recording. Please note this transcript was generated using AI transcription software. Despite best efforts to ensure accuracy, there may be some errors in the final piece.

Would you consider embryo transfer for a commercial herd?

If you found this episode useful, please share it with someone who breeds cattle, subscribe so you never miss a release, and leave a review.

Send us Fan Mail

For more information about our podcast visit www.chewinthecud.com/podcast or follow us on Instagram @chewinthecudpodcast, or on Facebook and LinkedIn as ChewintheCud Ltd. You can also email us at podcast@chewinthecud.com.

There is no muck and magic behind Carbon Farmer of the Year 2025. Stuart Rogers, Partner at Longmoor Farm Ltd, runs a high-yielding Holstein herd in North Dorset on a Duchy of Cornwall tenancy, and the farm was named Farm Carbon Toolkit's Carbon Farmer of the Year in 2025. Stuart and Rob Purdew, Farm Carbon & Soils Advisor at Farm Carbon Toolkit, joined Andrew and Sarah to explain how a herd averaging around 11,000 litres has brought its footprint down to 0.8 kg CO2e per kg of fat and protein corrected milk, against a UK dairy average of about 1.2.

Stuart talks through the simple changes behind that figure. The hedges are left taller and cut less often, and now sequester around 155 tonnes of carbon a year, up from 14. There has been no fertiliser on the grazing for seven years, the platform is laid out in one-hectare paddocks, and the maize has been strip-tilled into cover crops for six years. Rob explains what Farm Carbon Toolkit measures across the Duchy estate, how soil organic matter can increase up to 60 metres into a field from a healthy hedge, and why he thinks of the topsoil as a current account and the soil beneath it as a savings account.

Both are clear that none of this needs big changes. Stuart's advice is to find someone who has done it, trial it alongside what you already do, and make a start.

Entries for the competition open around the first week of March, and the 2026 awards will be presented at the Carbon Farmer of the Year Awards Day at FarmED, Chipping Norton, on 15 October 2026:

https://farmcarbontoolkit.org.uk/event/carbon-farmer-of-the-year-awards-day/

This episode was recorded in June 2026, and all information was correct at the time of recording. Please note this transcript was generated using AI transcription software. Despite best efforts to ensure accuracy, there may be some errors in the final piece.

If you could make one change on farm this year to cut both costs and carbon, what would it be?

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with someone who would find it useful, subscribe so you never miss a release, and leave us a review.

Send us Fan Mail

For more information about our podcast visit www.chewinthecud.com/podcast or follow us on Instagram @chewinthecudpodcast, or on Facebook and LinkedIn as ChewintheCud Ltd . You can also email us at podcast@chewinthecud.com.

A year on from one of ChewintheCud's most talked-about episodes, Ian Garner, Head of R&D at Antler Bio, returns to take epigenetics from theory into practice on real dairy farms.

This time the conversation turns to application. John Walsh, Director at Friars Moor Livestock Health and a dairy farmer running 250 cows through four robots, joins to share how his practice used the ADOPT grant to fund EpiHerd testing across three of its own vets' farms. He walks through what the process actually involves on farm, from blood sampling to waiting on results, and how the trial came about in the first place.

Ian explains how Antler Bio's database has grown since last year, now spanning farms across the UK, Ireland, Scandinavia and Canada, and how that extra scale is sharpening the picture on signatures like vitamin D. Sarah and Andrew press both guests on cost, return on investment, and how quickly farmers can expect results back once samples are taken.

For John's own herd, an early look at the results already has inflammation, immunity and protein metabolism high on the list to act on, with a full results meeting still to come. It is a candid look at what it actually takes to bring epigenetics onto a working dairy farm, warts and all.

This episode was recorded in August 2026, and all information was correct at the time of recording. Please note this transcript was generated using AI transcription software. Despite best efforts to ensure accuracy, there may be some errors in the final piece.

Has your herd's genetics ever felt like it was underperforming its potential?

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share it with someone in the industry, and leave us a review.

Send us Fan Mail

For more information about our podcast visit www.chewinthecud.com/podcast or follow us on Instagram @chewinthecudpodcast, or on Facebook and LinkedIn as ChewintheCud Ltd . You can also email us at podcast@chewinthecud.com.