In this Skip the Queue special episode, live from the Land Leisure & Tourism Show, Andy Povey speaks with Lisa Hogan of Diddly Squat Farm and Wolfe Bentinck, co-founders of Only Farmers, about farm diversification, rural tourism and creating new income streams through visitor experiences. They discuss the success of Diddly Squat Farm Shop, the influence of Clarkson's Farm, and how Only Farmers connects farmers, businesses and consumers through a growing online community and marketplace.
Farms are becoming more than agricultural businesses. Farm shops, glamping, outdoor activities and unique countryside experiences are creating new opportunities for farmers to diversify their income and attract visitors.
Recorded at the Land Leisure & Tourism Show in Birmingham, Andy Povey is joined by Lisa Hogan of Diddly Squat Farm and Wolfe Bentinck, co-founders of Only Farmers, to discuss the growing opportunities in farm diversification and rural tourism.
They explore how farmers can make better use of their land, create memorable visitor experiences, connect with new audiences and generate additional revenue. Lisa also shares insights into running the successful Diddly Squat Farm Shop and the impact of Clarkson's Farm on rural tourism.
Topics Discussed:
The economic impact of farm attractions on local communities.
Only Farmers
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.teds.onlyfarms
Lisa Hogan
Wolfe Bentinck
Land Leisure & Tourism Show
4 - 5 November, 2026 | NEC, Birmingham
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Credits:
Written by Laura Baxter (YourCMO)
Edited by Steve Folland
Produced by Emily Burrows and Sami Entwistle (Plaster)
Wolfe Bentinck: Just astonished by up to 5,000 people a day at the farm shop and you're just thinking, how are there this many people on the planet?
Andy Povey: Today I'm at day two of the Land Leisure and Tourism show here in Birmingham and I'm going to be joined by a couple of very special guests.
Lisa Hogan: It shows how many people will travel to a farm shop, to an attraction.
Andy Povey: Wolf Bentinck and Lisa Hogan, the founders of a brand new online community, Only Farmers.
Wolfe Bentinck: You kind of feel as if you're surrounded by other farmers, but the majority of the planet have no idea.
Andy Povey: We'll hear a bit about why the community's been set up, the huge market research efforts by Wolf to ensure it delivers value to users and where it's all going next.
Wolfe Bentinck: You can't depend on what's going on upstairs anymore. The weather's becoming so much more unpredictable, so what can you do that is more predictable?
Andy Povey: We'll also get a few insights from Lisa about life at Diddly Squat and what it's like running a very successful farm shop visitor attraction.
Lisa Hogan: I have to think in my head, I have a small farm shop and I have all my own suppliers and I call them up and we chat and I haggle.
Andy Povey: Welcome to Skip the Queue, the podcast for people working in and with visitor attractions, brought to you by Merac. I'm your host, Andy Povey.
Wolfe Bentinck: Only Farmers is an app where a farmer can sign up to create their account and they can join the farming community, speak to engage with other farmers, learn of them, as well as listing their experiences or stays, be it goat yoga, Highland cow therapy, beekeeping.
Andy Povey: Fantastic stuff.
Wolfe Bentinck: All the amazing things that the countryside and farmers have to offer.
Lisa Hogan: I think a lot of farmers as well that I've spoken today didn't realize that it's a trading platform for farmers as well. So say, for example, if you've got some silage, you can sell it and also if you have equipment, you can rent it. And it's absolutely free to join up. So it doesn't cost.
Wolfe Bentinck: Free to use.
Lisa Hogan: It takes a couple of minutes to set up. Now that we have enough farmers signed up, so it's kind of snowballing. Now we can really start onboarding all of our customers who want to come out into the land. And if I think as well, I mean, it's not necessarily for farmers, it's for theme parks, it's for farm shops. You don't have to be a farmer to sign up.
Andy Povey: It's that whole agricultural community. It's like country.
Wolfe Bentinck: Exactly.
Lisa Hogan: If you breathe oxygen, you can sign up.
Andy Povey: I was talking to an operator, a theme park that has a farm as well yesterday, and they grow pumpkins. There's about 100,000 pumpkins a year.
Wolfe Bentinck: Wow.
Andy Povey: He only uses 40,000, so he actually sells 60,000 pumpkins. So you need to come onto your marketplace.
Wolfe Bentinck: Yeah, 100%. We were just at Hatter's Farm and they very similar situation.
Lisa Hogan: I think they do.
Wolfe Bentinck: 450,000, I think. Yeah. And they're like the Disneyland of pumpkins. It's incredible.
Lisa Hogan: They built, they had this toadstool which must have been 30 meters high, made of pumpkins. I mean, they have slides. I mean, it is. You wouldn't want to go down a pumpkin slide.
Wolfe Bentinck: And like you say, the rest they sell. But they make so much money in the lead up to Halloween just from. And they tried multiple different things in the lead up to this. It wasn't all clean sailing. Yeah. Like with any business, you know, I think farmers are. Have to be entrepreneurs and most of them already are. And it's a case of realising, okay, what we've tried, you learn from. If it doesn't necessarily work, you still learn on some things that didn't. And then you try something, you can try something else. But I think there is so much opportunity within farmland. We truly believe it's one of the most undervalued asset classes on the planet.
Lisa Hogan: Well, it used to be you were a farm and you were a farmer and that was it. But you're sitting on a gold mine that other people would want paid to come and be on your land, which is amazing. And I do think Clarkson's farm has helped people realize, actually, I'm not going to go to a farm and break my leg or lose a finger. I, I understand more now and it's okay. It's. It's a. You know, it's. If.
Wolfe Bentinck: You do, if you do wear white trainers, though, they might get a little bit.
Lisa Hogan: They might get muddy,.
Wolfe Bentinck: But from time to time. Yeah, exactly.
Lisa Hogan: People say what happens if the weather's bad? But it's not about the weather. It's about the wardrobe,.
Andy Povey: About the, wardrobe.
Lisa Hogan: It's about the wardrobe. It's never about the weather, it's only about it.
Wolfe Bentinck: Also, it hardly rains here anymore. It feels like.
Andy Povey: Yeah, but that's not ideal for a farmer, is it?
Lisa Hogan: Really isn't.
Wolfe Bentinck: Well, quite. I mean, so. And that's part of the other point, is that you can't depend on what's going on upstairs anymore. It does not. The weather's becoming so much more unpredictable, so what can you do that is more predictable? Same with, you know, new governments coming in, new defra. It's all unpredictable. What you can predict is building diversity projects on your farm, having ownership of that, having control of the pricing, having control over what happens and then generating additional income through.
Lisa Hogan: We don't have, like, it's not a health and safety site. Like, you don't have to tick any boxes. So any farmer or anyone that has anything, like the people we spoke to, that great couple and they had built two paddle padel courts.
Wolfe Bentinck: Oh yeah, yeah.
Lisa Hogan: And they'd made more in one year from their two paddle courts than they had in all of in their farming that year. And they've got quite a substantial farm. So that sort of diversification is great. But then we, I think OnlyFarmers, we can have like, competitions. So you can have different people competing, but then you can have people that want to just do a padel holiday in England and they can go around all the staying at people's farms, playing padel, sometimes against the locals.
Andy Povey: Yeah, yeah.
Lisa Hogan: So you set up these tournaments.
Wolfe Bentinck: Yeah,.
Lisa Hogan: Yeah. And you can find that all only farmers because you have herds. So if you join a padel herd, you can see who else is playing. And if, you know, if you. If you don't have anyone to play with, you can join a herd, you can find out where your court is and you can sign up and you can become part of the herd.
Andy Povey: One thing I really love about the farming community, having worked around or on the periphery of farm attractions for a long time, is how open they all are to sharing. So you're not having to learn things yourself for the first time. Every time there's going to be someone in the community that's done it before. Yeah. How are you helping farmers share that?
Wolfe Bentinck: Well, exactly. Although I think some might be a bit cautious. If they're having pumpkins, then next the farmer just next to them goes, I'm going to do that. But as long as it's, you know, a bit distance, everyone's happy to go around.
Lisa Hogan: But I also think as well, like you were saying how, because you visited so many of these farms and how farmers have realised who's a couple of fields away because they were just other farmers that they never really had a relationship with, but now they've checked them out thoroughly only farmers and they're meeting for pints.
Andy Povey: Oh, perfect. I mean, isolation is going to be one of the big issues in the farming community.
Lisa Hogan: Yeah,.
Wolfe Bentinck: Yeah. It's one of the most engaging but isolated communities on the planet, I think. And having. Just having a home for them to ask anything, you know, we have a herd just with random thoughts. And it's one of my favourite herds on the planet because they are the most random of thoughts. Oh, like rain is. Rain's kind of like going through a fish tank. If you think. But it's like droplets coming. Just the weird. But like people then go, it's funny. I was just thinking about that.
Wolfe Bentinck: Yeah. Poo with a view.
Lisa Hogan: Poo with a view. So people have posted great pictures. Not of their poo, of their view. And because, yeah, there's some really good stuff coming in on poo with a view sign up to my herd.
Andy Povey: I can imagine. That's fantastic. So operating in Diddley squat farm and being involved in the success, runaway success of the farm shop and all that kind of stuff, you've got a huge contrast there between running an operational farm and running what is effectively a visitor attraction. How do you manage it?
Lisa Hogan: I think I still feel like I have. I have to think in my head, I have a small farm shop. Yeah. So I run it in my head.
Wolfe Bentinck: Yeah, you really do.
Lisa Hogan: Like, I have and I have all my own suppliers and I call them up and we chat and I haggle. Yeah. And I run. And I have to, because then one when people come that's they feel that it is run like a small.
Andy Povey: It's authentic.
Lisa Hogan: It's very authentic. But that's also what I really enjoy. Like, I really enjoy all of my chatting to my suppliers. I really enjoy that they've grown and that they've taken on more people, they bought bigger premises and that we've done that, which is amazing. And a lot of them were on the brink during COVID So it came at that time where you could really see the help that we were giving. And that's where wanting to spread the love and to try and help everyone else in the same way that we've been helped by having the show is it's been a great challenge. And thanks, Wolfie, for making it happen.
Andy Povey: No, I mean, we do have other attraction groups in our customer base that aren't farm parks who are crying out for a Clarkson zoo or Clarkson theme park.
Andy Povey: TV programme because of the success that has brought to that community and the wider understanding.
Lisa Hogan: People are so happy when they come up to the farm shop and they just want to say thank you so much for highlighting, for showing me what actually happens. And Jeremy is obviously incredibly good at television.
Andy Povey: Of course.
Lisa Hogan: And he is an Egypt, but he is incredibly good in television. But I think that people are just want to continue on the joy that they had from watching the show to coming to the shop. But then it's like enough to go around.
Wolfe Bentinck: So true. It really is. I'm always just astonished by it, you know, for the last three or four years as 5,000 on up to 5,000 people a day at the farm shop. And you're just thinking, how are there this many people on the planet? And there really are.
Lisa Hogan: And people fly over. There was an Australian family was flying to America and they Came to diddly squat foreign shop on the way and I was doing shanty tastings up there and I was chatting to them and I was like, oh, you're from Melbourne. And they were like, yeah, we're on our way to Australia. But we were not going to fly over Clarkson's farm without stopping. So they came, they drove straight from the airport, they spent the day with me and then they'd rented a car, they'd stayed the night in a hotel and the next day they flew out. So, you know, it is. What we're bringing in as well to the economy is, I think, quite healthy. I don't know if the council agree, but I think, you know, we are actually the. We're number two in Oxford after Oxfordshire, after Blenheim.
Andy Povey: Oh, really?
Lisa Hogan: So the business side of the council are really happy with us. But it shows how many people will travel to a farm shop, to an attraction to go and stay in. There's some amazing glamping tents.
Lisa Hogan: Yeah. It's really interesting just looking around.
Wolfe Bentinck: Short show here.
Lisa Hogan: Yeah.
Andy Povey: It's phenomenal, isn't it? Yeah. I want a bigger car.
Wolfe Bentinck: And they're stunning. Yeah. And, you know, some of them I've seen are selling for £60,000. It sounds like a lot of money, but it's for what you're getting. It's incredible. And they have, you know, you can get for a loan off it, do a profit share with them.
Lisa Hogan: There are loads of different ways outside of OnlyFarmers that you said is in development. So when that man stood up and he said, he did have the yurt company and he said, how do I reach farmers? Can I go onto the app and reach farmers and let. Give them a payment plan.
Andy Povey: Yeah.
Lisa Hogan: And set the whole thing up for them. Make them and. But talk it through and give them other examples, make it easy for them.
Wolfe Bentinck: Yeah. And it's making as super. As discovered as possible. In the same way that we have the farmer to customer, we're making it as easy for the customer to find the farm and the farm to.
Lisa Hogan: And the business which you mentioned earlier, which was news to me, that it's good to know on stage. There's a new section. I mean, we talked about it originally. It was one of the things. Things. But it's good to know it's happening.
Wolfe Bentinck: And in essence, it's a case of making. It's really hard to find people who are experts and who are doing all of these different things and how you can connect them together in one place.
Lisa Hogan: You want to be able to trust them.
Wolfe Bentinck: Exactly.
Lisa Hogan: You don't know who you're going to.
Andy Povey: That trust is huge.
Wolfe Bentinck: Yeah. And it's not going to be just anyone that can come on and use our farmers trust, but there's a vetting process that we'll put in. We have relationships with all these people and then they get accredited by other farmers that they work with. So it's hopefully just expands the community on.
Lisa Hogan: Business section. Exactly. Businesses can put themselves on. We've had some amazing innovative people that have come to the farm with their innovations and I'm like, how do. They don't have a marketing team.
Andy Povey: No, no.
Lisa Hogan: So I'm. This is where they can go on to. Only Farmers and people can find them and they don't have to have a marketing team. They can. We can do their marketing for you.
Andy Povey: And with that word of mouth, that guaranteed reassurance that someone you know is also using this.
Lisa Hogan: Yes, exactly.
Andy Povey: Is that's marketing gold. So you say they don't have a marketing team, but actually they've got a huge marketing team.
Wolfe Bentinck: 100%.
Lisa Hogan:
Andy Povey: That is just all the other members of OnlyFarmers.
Lisa Hogan: Yes.
Wolfe Bentinck: And if, you know, with. With the community growing, people are going to trust the opinions of others as well. Exactly. Like you were saying. And I think it'll be really valuable once you have those success stories and then other people sharing it and then that fuels further learning and further people wanting to diversify more and generate more income. And then you just.
Lisa Hogan: You've done like you would speak to what, 30 farmers a day.
Wolfe Bentinck: At the beginning. Yeah.
Andy Povey: Yeah, yeah.
Lisa Hogan: Every single farmer just asking for their opinion. What do they need? What can we do for you?
Wolfe Bentinck: Walking through all their pain points.
Andy Povey: So that's all your market research before you develop the product.
Wolfe Bentinck: Well, exactly.
Andy Povey: Build the community to serve what people are telling.
Lisa Hogan: You yut in some welly. You didn't skip the queue.
Andy Povey: I'll see what you did there. So, Lisa, you mentioned the economic impact of diddly squat on the local community. I think that's something the much larger attractions are very hot on. And I'm not sure that farm attractions really are because they don't have, I suppose, the bandwidth or the capacity to look at that. But we work with a couple of attractions very close to you and they're seeing phenomenal increases in visitor numbers, which they're.
Lisa Hogan: Great.
Andy Povey: I don't know that their marketing teams are attributing it. The increase interest in the area.
Lisa Hogan: Yes, people in the area, but also say, for example, there is like, there's a group of women that do clay pigeon shooting and they all have spare rooms that they have put on Only Farmers.
Andy Povey: Perfect.
Lisa Hogan: And people will come and stay that are visiting a shop and so they, you know, they're just. So it's people like that we really want to get on board as well. Like, if you have a house or an apartment in a spare room, rent it out, because people will come and they need somewhere to stay.
Andy Povey: Well, again, we're all seeking that authenticity, aren't we?
Lisa Hogan: Yes.
Andy Povey: That's the whole advantage of a farm state. Yeah. 20 Years ago, 40 years ago, maybe, when I was doing this as a kid, it was in a leaky caravan on the back of someone's farm. So if you can lift the quality and make the experience.
Lisa Hogan: Well, exactly. But I don't think people realise. They think, Oh, no one will come. And because I'm in, you know, I live down a lane and, you know. But people really do. They are dying to come and stay. Longing to. As opposed to dying to.
Wolfe Bentinck: Yeah, longing to.
Lisa Hogan: Longing to come and stay.
Wolfe Bentinck: Much nicer.
Andy Povey: I was up in Scarborough with the family over half term last week, driving across the North York moors overnight.
Lisa Hogan: Beautiful.
Andy Povey: I stopped the car and turned all the lights off because I live in London. You don't get dark.
Lisa Hogan: Yeah.
Andy Povey: Gosh. That's what the night sky really looks like.
Lisa Hogan: Yes. Yeah.
Andy Povey: So being down the lane is not a detraction.
Lisa Hogan: Exactly, exactly. It's quiet.
Andy Povey: You're going to find someone who wants the thing you've got whatever that thing is, wherever you are.
Lisa Hogan: Yeah. When I remember going to Cuba years and years ago and we stayed with. We only stayed with people. And, you know, you'd pay cash. Yeah. It was like 30 bucks a night. But they would cook for you, make great cocktails. We ended up with some of the best friends because, you know, once you go outside the city, you just want to go and meet people and find out what they're about.
Wolfe Bentinck: And I was just speaking to two of our farmers over there, first time meeting them in person, and she was asking me how do I promote what we're doing on your platform as well. And I was saying how that's why we have the social vids, so you can share your stories, which then customers can buy into because it's really valuable to see where you're about to go, stay and have that relationship before you go in and continue that relationship afterwards. And she goes, oh, well, you know, I don't think our story is that unique. And then she goes, oh, well, his family's been farming for 200 years. And I'm telling you have no idea how interesting and unique that is. It's because obviously you kind of feel as if you're surrounded by other farmers and like.
Wolfe Bentinck: But the majority of the planet have no idea. No. And they are so curious to find out. And I'm just thinking that 200 years, the stories that, you know, both world wars, he was a beetroot farmer from 200 years ago. Still same family name, still same family farm. And just people.
Lisa Hogan: Would love to go sit down. I mean, you don't have to sit down with people, but once you meet them. I find it really difficult when I go to the shop and start talking to people and, you know, Jeremy's kind of texting, going, what are you having for supper?
Andy Povey: What arey you doing?
Lisa Hogan: What are you burning for supper yourself? And I just, people are so interesting, especially the farmers, which is kind of where all of this came out. Just being really curious about what other people were doing on their land. Not necessarily farmers, not doing anything. Like some, you know, dog walking is a big thing. So people are paying £15 and they all meet up and the farmer says, you can walk this way, there are no bulls in the field. He gets the money in and they get to have a lovely experience with their dogs where they're allowed.
Wolfe Bentinck: And making new friends along the way and it's building that community back.
Lisa Hogan: Yeah, there's so many little things like that you can think of, but if you don't have inspiration, go on to Only Farmers and have a look and see what other people do.
Andy Povey: So, on that note, how do I go onto Only Farmers? How do I sign up?
Wolfe Bentinck: You just download. You can either download the app or go to onlyfarmers.co.uk and create your account on the app or on the website.
Lisa Hogan: You go to the App Store or Google Play.
Wolfe Bentinck: App Store. Google Play.
Andy Povey: Yeah, yeah.
Lisa Hogan: And put in Only Farmers.
Andy Povey: So what's your excuse for not doing it right now? Everyone who's listening.
Wolfe Bentinck: It's not really a good one.
Andy Povey: I have.
Lisa Hogan: Oh, you always have. Sorry.
Andy Povey: Sami made me. In terms of research.
Lisa Hogan: How did you find us?
Andy Povey: Really interesting. Really interesting. Because there's such a diversity of what you're offering there. So as a consumer, I could have gone and booked a room or you booked some accommodation, booked a pig wrestling event.
Lisa Hogan: What advice. What would you say to people if you wanted to encourage them to sign up, like, now we have enough farmers, we want to get customers on. What would you say?
Andy Povey: Your consumer message is all about those families who are looking for things to do that get them back in touch with the real world. My wife works in food and she. I listened to a webinar because it was on in the same room while we were away and there's a huge change coming. Or the food industry is predicting a huge change in the food that's being supplied because of the uplift in weight loss drugs.
Wolfe Bentinck: Yeah.
Andy Povey: So portion sizes are going down and all that kind of stuff. The quality of food that people want is less, but they want better quality but less of it. If that makes dense. Yeah.
Andy Povey: So there's all these things that people are trying to do in their lives, their day to day lives. And farming, very much like visitor attractions in general are places where people go touch the grass, to have that real life experience. And people are crying out.
Lisa Hogan: If you have like, you know, hen parties, you know, nobody's going to know what you're up to. Are you? If you're in a barn with a couple of sheep or if you have single people who are, you know, looking to go and you can go and stay on a farm.
Wolfe Bentinck: We have a single farmer's herd as well.
Lisa Hogan: Do you, now?
Wolfe Bentinck: Yeah, we do.
Lisa Hogan: Well, that's good.
Wolfe Bentinck: Not me personally, but.
Andy Povey: In case anyone's listening.
Wolfe Bentinck: In case my girlfriend's listening. Yeah,.
Lisa Hogan: Yeah, I think. But it's also if people are lonely, not just in the countryside but in cities, they can find different herds and they can head away and see how.
Andy Povey: Just get out and experience. Exactly. So really enjoyed the conversation. Thank you.
Lisa Hogan: Thank you.
Wolfe Bentinck: Thank you so much, Andy.
Andy Povey: Well, thank you to Wolf and Lisa. Listeners, I hope you found that as interesting as I did, I could quite honestly have stayed chatting all day. If you've enjoyed today's episode, please do, like share and comment on whatever channel you use to get your podcasts.
Today's episode was brought to you by Merac, was edited by Steve Folland, produced by Emily and Sami at Plaster, with socials and schedules by Wenalyn and Merac HQ. I've been your host, Andy Povey. Thank you and goodbye.