First Time Farmers

Robbie, Ed and Nick, three young farmer friends from Herefordshire, are about to take on the biggest summer of their lives. Robbie is trying to make a successful business from his mum's struggling pig farm, Ed returns to the family farm after quitting his city job, and fourth-generation farmer Nick is trying to escape the family business.

Seventeen-year-old Flossy from Somerset runs her family farm even though she's still at school. Flossy is still a novice when it comes to farming solo but she has full responsibility for going to market to buy cattle, medicating the animals and rearing the sheep. Every day involves juggling farm work with school work, and with her exams approaching the pressure is on. George from Cheltenham works all hours juggling looking after his flock of sheep, running his own firewood and fencing business and making time for his important social life. He's keen to prove to his mum that he can handle lambing season on his own and do it well. And 18-year-old Lewis, the son of an organic dairy farmer, is in his third year studying agriculture.

At 25, Ally from Herefordshire has taken over the sole running of his own farm - an opportunity that most farmers' sons don't get until middle age, if at all. He's now responsible for 500 acres of arable land, which his family have rented from The Duchy for 45 years. He has swapped houses with his parents, who have retired, and is now living on his own in the six-bedroom, 400-year-old farmhouse that he grew up in, where he sleeps in his parents' old master bedroom. The question of inheritance is less straightforward for James Hole from Somerset: a ninth generation dairy farmer who is preparing for his wedding to the local vet. The family farm is owned by James' grandfather, his uncle and his dad Steve, but James and his two brothers all have designs on it. And Alex from Cheshire faces his biggest challenge yet when his father goes on holiday, leaving him to run the family farm and carry out a £30,000 cattle deal at the market, unsupervised for the first time.

This episode meets young people who don't come from farming backgrounds but are determined to get into the business. Bunny is petite, young and feminine; she may not look like a farmer but she knows how to drive a tractor, cart corn, deliver lambs and judge stock. Bunny was voted 'most likely to be a farmer's wife' at school but her dream is to become a farmer in her own right and own her own farm one day. Henry from the Cotswolds is a full-time shepherd who oversees a flock of 500 ewes with the help of his two sheepdogs and his very own shepherd's crook. The programme follows him as he guides his lambs from the birthing shed to the supermarket. And 21-year-old Will from Dorset works on a dairy farm in Somerset. He got into farming because he's a committed tractor-head - his first word was tractor - but when his boss injures himself he must learn how to take care of the cows during the busy calving season.

Twenty-five-year-old Henry has returned to work on the family arable farm with his dad after studying at college. Henry is in line to be the fifth generation of his family to take over the farm. He and his dad are a close team, but whereas the farm always comes first for Henry's dad, Henry puts raves and parties higher on his priority list than his dad would like. Eighteen-year-old pedigree pig farmer Hayley from Dorset has won numerous awards for her champion pigs. She's been looking after pigs since she was a toddler; she has pig breeding in her blood, and even competes against her dad for the coveted Pig of the Year championship. And 24-year-old Rob from Wiltshire is a self-employed shepherd. He's determined to make a career out of sheep farming although he comes from a non-farming family. His goal is to make enough money from one season's sheep shearing to buy his own flock.