Episode 1

Filmed across a year, this series follows the lives of five farming families across Scotland.

The autumn sales are over, and preparations are being made for winter. In Newtonmore, in the Cairngorms National Park, Robert MacKenzie needs to gather in all his pregnant cows back to the croft for pregnancy testing. Costs of feed and fertiliser have shot up this year, so if not enough are in calf, it may be time to stop farming cattle.

In North Uist, the MacDonald family are harvesting potatoes grown in the sandy Machair soil that is unique to the west of Scotland. The croft has been in Angus’s hands since the 1980s, but now he is steadily handing over the reins to son Fraser and daughter-in-law Carianne.

On Thorabella Farm in Moray, Nikki and Ollie Lake are doing things a bit differently, having bought their first farm in 2017 with the goal of living as self-sufficiently as possible. They need to call on the vet to help one of their cows that is experiencing a difficult birth.