An EVER-present farm near Oswestry is getting a big television break as it becomes the focal point of a new series on Quest.

Treflach Farm is featuring in the 10-episode-long series titled Born Mucky: Life on the Farm, which aired its first episode last night (Tuesday).

The family-run farm opened back in 1904, and has been based in Treflach ever since.

It is now under the management of Ian Steele who returned to look after the farm in 2006, following some time working in London and overseas.

The show will follow the family throughout their day-to-day working lives on the farm as staff showcase the hard work and dedication it takes to look after the farm and produce quality produce.

Ian said the opportunity to showcase working life at the Treflach site is something he is really grateful for.

“It’s a really exciting thing for us,” he said.

“We’re really lucky to have some wonderful people working on the farm and some wonderful customers, but now being able to spread the word about good quality food, locally grown with locally sourced ingredients, it’s really great to be able to shout about that to a wider audience.

“We are a relatively small-scale operation and we’re not here to take over the world, but to be able to grow the message is something I’m really grateful to the guys at the television programme for.”

The series is aiming to give people an insight to where their food comes from and how it is produced.

A similar programme delivered by the same company focused on independent food retailers, and they now want to go further down the production chain to show what happens before it reaches the consumers.

Featuring in the initial programme was an independent retailer named Eat 17, who suggested Treflach Farm should be part of the upcoming series.

Ian said: “We supplied a really great independent retailer called Eat 17 and they had a programme made about them because of the good work they do in the community and other things.

“The television company that made that programme was looking at going up the production chain to start looking at where the food comes from before it reaches the retailers.

“They wanted to get a proper idea of where the food comes from and the personalities behind them which is not necessarily the story the consumer hears a lot of the time.

“So they asked people at Eat 17 to recommend someone they could talk to, and very kindly they recommended us.”

After returning to the farm in 2006, it was left to Ian to decide which direction the family-run business was to go next.

This resulted, eventually, in the farm being as it is today, with an on-site bakery and more transparency for visitors to see where their food has come from.

But on a personal note, it was also a change which Ian says was beneficial to his wellbeing as he made a career change to focus on working at the farm full-time.

He said: “Because we deliver our food to independent retailers ourselves, we tick a lot of the boxes.

“We have free-range animals on the farm and we have the bakery here – and all our food is packaged up and labelled as Treflach Farm produce.

“So we have that traceability which a lot of food producers don’t really have.

“People are further removed from their food than they have ever been; what we’re trying to do is change that and actually engage with people about where their food comes from.

“We want to make people understand that eating healthily doesn’t necessarily have to break the bank and can help with their well-being.

“We do this also through the community interest companies we run from the farm which helps adults with learning difficulties and mental health issues.

“I found returning to the farm being a very therapeutic exercise in itself – I struggled with mental health issues and depression when I was working abroad and down in London.

“Returning to the farm and taking it in a new direction has really helped me and I’ve found a lot of peace and therapeutic value from working outside in fresh air and doing tasks that have real visible outcomes.

“You get a massive sense of wellbeing and satisfaction from seeing your work done in front of you, it gives you a real sense of satisfaction.”

Ian hopes the programme can inform people about how much care is taken for the animals at the farm.

He added: “From our perspective, we want to get the message across that food production can be environmentally aware and we can produce food which fits with a moral and ethical framework.

“Looking after animals as well as we possibly can, with them fitting into the food chain in a way that really values them as sentient beings, but also nourishes people spiritually and physically.

“And doing all that while suppressing carbon and becoming energy neutral or even generating energy on the farm using appropriate technologies.

“We want people to see farming can be a force for the good in this world rather than a bit of a maligned force that it can be seen as in the media.

“It’s frustrating because farming can often be lumped together as one variety, when actually there are a lot of ways of producing food, and what we’re trying to show is that we can produce food in a way which is sympathetic to nature and can work with the local economy and can offer good well-paid jobs.

“It can also help with regards to giving mental health benefits when working outdoors and as one with animals – mental health is a real issue that has come about in society in general, but in farming specifically in the past couple of years.”

The programme is set to air on Quest at 9pm every Tuesday for the next nine weeks.