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Guy Singh-Watson

Kirsty Young interviews farmer Guy Singh-Watson.

Guy Singh-Watson is an organic farmer and founder of Riverford, a major British supplier of organic vegetables through a box delivery scheme. Born in 1960 and the youngest of five children, his parents became tenant farmers in Devon in 1951. He describes himself as "a proper little farm boy", and spent his free time outside, clambering up trees, catching rabbits, rearing his own pig and helping on the farm.

Severely dyslexic, he disliked school, but thanks to an aptitude for performing well in exams, he won a place at Oxford University to read Agricultural and Forestry Science, graduating with a First. He briefly joined the family farm, but left to become a management consultant in London and then New York, returning to the farm in 1986. He started cultivating vegetables on three acres of land with a wheelbarrow and a borrowed tractor, and found his niche, moving from three to 18 to 50 acres quite rapidly.

Initially, Guy sold to supermarkets, but became convinced that there must be a better way of getting his produce to customers, and set up a veg box scheme in 1993. His company now delivers to around 50,000 homes a week and had a turnover of 拢56.7 million in 2017.
Guy has four grown-up children from his first marriage and an eight-year-old step-daughter from his second marriage to Geetie Singh.

Presenter: Kirsty Young
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Available now

39 minutes

Last on

Fri 6 Jul 2018 09:00

Music Played

  • Kenny Rogers

    Lucille

    • Kenny Rogers: Anthology.
    • Warner Music UK Limited.
    • 6.
  • Tofu Loves Frogs

    Vegetable Attack

    • Vegetable Attack.
    • Prox Records.
    • 2.
  • Harry Belafonte

    Chickens

    • Belafonte Returns To Carnegie Hall.
    • RCA Victor.
    • 4.
  • Sex Pistols

    Anarchy In The UK

    • Anarchy In The UK.
    • Mercury Records Limited.
    • 1.
  • CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE

    • Bronski Beat

      Smalltown Boy

      • The Age Of Consent.
      • Warner Music UK Limited.
      • 6.
  • Talking Heads

    Once In A Lifetime

    • Remain In Light.
    • Warner Music UK Limited.
    • 4.
  • Leonard Cohen

    I'm Your Man

    • The Essential Leonard Cohen.
    • Sony Music Entertainment UK Ltd.
    • 16.
  • Grace Jones

    Pull Up To The Bumper

    • Nightclubbing.
    • Island.
    • 2.
  • BOOK CHOICE

    Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

  • LUXURY ITEM

    Surfboard

Credits

Role Contributor
Presenter Kirsty Young
Interviewed Guest Guy Singh-Watson
Producer Cathy Drysdale

Broadcasts

  • Sun 1 Jul 2018 11:15
  • Fri 6 Jul 2018 09:00

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