Tom Pemberton Farm Life Exposed

Tom Pemberton Farm Life

Agriculture is known universally as the key development factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, which allowed the farming and domestication of animals. Farming and animal husbandry provided a reliable source of food, which eventually enabled people to live in cities. One can argue that it is the same urban lifestyle that has made the youth of today to view agriculture and animal farming as an unfavorable prospect. However, one young farmer in the United Kingdom is using YouTube to influence people’s perception by sharing his own life as a farm manager.

Hello and welcome to my YouTube channel! I want to introduce you to Tom Pemberton, the man behind the channel ‘Tom Pemberton Farm Life’. He has inherited Pemberton Dairies, Birks Farm, Lancashire, which has stayed in the family for five generations now. Lytham, a seaside town seven miles south of Blackpool. The 220-acre holding is home to 140 cows, ten sheep and a smattering of goats, horses, guinea pigs and rabbits.

After completing his education at Royal Agricultural University, the 30 year old returned to the farm and currently runs it with the help of his father and Joanna, his girlfriend and now wife. He is quite passionate about promoting British agriculture, showing us realistic and down-to-earth insights about family life on a farm. He uploads videos that feature the caretaking of animals, arrival of new cattle and new farming equipment, selling cattle, and general upkeep of the farm. In a bid to portray it as genuinely as possible, Tom also showcases the tough aspects of this responsibility, particularly through risky experiences handling the animals that include Tom being chased by cattle, getting jumped by heifers, almost getting run over by a bull, or getting cattle crush destroyed by his lame bull. Tom claims that he documents “the highs, the lows and everything in-between”, and a quick look at the videos show how committed he is to this vision.

Tom’s videos evoke a mix of nostalgia and novelty, in general. Some of the viewers tend to reminisce about their own experiences, having spent a part of their lives at their own or a relative’s farm, or working at dairy farms. The other part of this demographic is formed by people who have had no exposure to it, and get to learn a lot about farming from these videos. One woman, for example, explained that she had never realized prior to this, how many skills a farmer needed to have- from basic mechanics, engineering, architecture, veterinary care, carpentry, building, welding, metal working, accounting, financial planning, marketing, and so many more! The content is quite educational as well, for example, Tom explained in one of the videos why twin calves can be a nightmare for farmers as they result in fertility issues.

Although the channel was created back in December 2011, the first video on the channel is from September 2016, that is Tom displaying how they use the raw milk vending machine on the family farm. Some of the older videos show cows in cozy coats and cozy calves are the stars of another old video. While some people found these videos relaxing, others went so far as to claim that they were really good to fall asleep to – to each their own!

The audience loves to see someone investing the time and money to take care of his animals, which is evident in the fact that the most popular video on his channel showcases one of the cows in extreme pain. The video, which has 13M views, features Tom taking care of the distressed cow by bandaging the infected hoof to make the cow comfortable. The second most popular video on the channel is titled ‘How to make 100 cows extremely happy quickly’ by means of a cow brush.

The first video to cross a million views on YouTube was uploaded in April 2019, about Tom taking 100 cows outside for the first time after six months of snow, and showed the happy cows frolicking in the grass. Apart from deriving pleasure from seeing animals thrive, the viewers are quite invested in the life on Birks farm. There are a number of comments under each video, congratulating Tom on the successful delivery of a calf, expressing condolences on the passing of an animal, praises on his patience with the animals, sympathies for unfortunate incidents and even appreciation for the gait and stature of bulls! One would certainly be inclined to say that Pemberton is successfully fulfilling the task of garnering respect for farming work.

From the popularity of his YouTube content, Thomas is now the presenter of BBC3’s Fast and Farmer- ish. Pemberton has also launched his own clothing line, which includes t-shirts and beanie hats.