The Manx NFU celebrated its 75th anniversary with a dinner at the Palace Hotel.

Well-known agricultural YouTube star, Olly Harrison, visited the island over the weekend, invited by the Union, to speak at the dinner.

Olly, who says he has ‘a big machine obsession’ started his YouTube channel, Olly Blogs, during lockdown and it now has around 50,000 subscribers.

Leaving school at 16 to work on what was then a small family farm, Olly has transformed the enterprise into one of the largest arable farms in the area at around 1,700 acres. He grows wheat, barley, beans, oilseed rape and sunflowers. He is also a contractor, harvesting around 2,500 acres for other local farmers. His farm has diversified into many different projects from biomass boilers and converting the farm and buildings for tourism and leisure. Olly has also raised over £170,000.00 for charity.

Olly, along with other invited guests from NFU North West, David Hall, regional director; Liz Berry, county adviser, and Liz’s partner David Houghton, met with Union president Ean Parsons and vice-president Murray Cringle.

Manx NFU general secretary, Sarah Comish, said: ‘After a dramatic arrival in the high winds on Friday they managed to take in some of the night rally stages at Maughold on Friday, then visited Will Mcmillan’s arable enterprise at The Lhen and Al and Rachel Teare’s livestock farm in Andreas on Saturday.

‘Olly had some good conversations about farm business and raised the issue of shipping costs as a big concern for Manx farmers trying to compete with UK produce.

‘The anniversary dinner was well attended and we would like to thank the NFU Mutual Team for all of the support for the Event and all the speakers for their contributions.’

Olly has made a film about his adventure which is available to watch on his YouTube channel.