YOUNG Herefordshire farmers are playing a major role in a new Channel 4 programme about the future of agriculture.

First Time Farmers is a five-part documentary series looking at all aspects of farming life through the eyes of the younger generation.

Alastair Hunter-Blair from near Ross-on-Wye and Robbie McGuffie and Ed Godsall, both from near Ledbury, are among those breathing new life into the agricultural world.

Filmed over a six-month period the documentary will lift the lid on the dilemmas and daily grind of young farmers living in Herefordshire, the Cotswolds and the West Country.

The programme, created by the Made in Chelsea team, shows a career in agriculture is not “all work and no play” and these young farmers share how they balance socialising and farming commitments.

Their family and friends reveal what they make of their lifestyle and the young farmers are given advice by the older generation.

Aged from 16 to their mid-20s, the farmers reveal why they have chosen to work in such a gruelling trade.

Some of them have had their careers mapped out since birth, inheriting farms built up by generations of their family before them. Others are building a career from scratch with no farming background at all.

The Herefordshire farmers taking part in the series include Alistair, who works on the family farm at Weir End Farm, Weir End. He recently took over the 500 acre arable and sheep farm which his family has rented for 45 years.

Alastair has swapped houses with his parents and is now living in the six-bedroomed, 400-yearold farmhouse that he grew up in.

At 25 he is running his own farm – an opportunity most farmers’ sons don’t get until middle-age.

This means he has full responsibility over the farm that his dad has spent most of his life building up from scratch.

“We still run the farm as a partnership but it’s my name is on the tenancy,” Alastair told the Hereford Times.

“Dad has been brilliant stepping back especially when he has done it for 45 years, but the transition has been going on for four years.

“I love farming – and you would need to, because of the hours involved and the difficulty planning your social life.

“There is a youth side to farming and if the programme can promote it that's a good thing.”

Alistair appears in episode three which will be broadcast on January 25.

The other young Herefordshire farmers will be appear in the first episode broadcast on C4 tomorrow (Friday) at 8pm.