Meet the potato grower living with an actress and TV presenter on a North Yorkshire farm

Having a partner who gives away houses, cars and millions of pounds while the other is investing ever-increasing huge sums on crops that may or may not come good is the combined and perhaps incongruous life of a North Yorkshire farmer worried about his future, and his voiceover artist and TV presenter wife.

Stephen and Jo Rooke live at Lodge Farm in Nunnington. Stephen farms in partnership with his brother Tim, who lives at Manor Farm, Stonegrave. Their farm business includes around 2,000 acres of arable cropping with their main income from potatoes.

Jo, better known professionally as Jo Pickard, is the voice and face of the brand Omaze, that sees her announcing winners of huge prizes in spectacular fashion.

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Stephen said that despite good prices currently, particularly for cereals, he has never been as worried for the future of farming.

Stephen and Jo Rooke live on the old Nunnington estateStephen and Jo Rooke live on the old Nunnington estate
Stephen and Jo Rooke live on the old Nunnington estate

“I’ve never known a time like now. We still haven’t seen the whole effect of Brexit, our hands are increasingly tied because Defra is full of environmentalists, we’ve bans on what we can do on our farms that are not in place in other countries, and we are not able to get the fertiliser we would normally use as the UK sources it from the Ukraine.

“If you haven’t got your nitrogen bought by now you won’t be putting it on this year. There is going to be a serious shortage.”

Stephen said his farming partnership with brother Tim sees them with land in the East Riding at Wilberfoss where their father moved from in 1957 to come to Nunnington, as well as land at Tim’s farm, which their father acquired in 1963. Both brothers’ farms were part of the Nunnington estate. They also rent land elsewhere including black moors land at Fadmoor.

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Stephen is a potato farmer and Jo is a TV presenter, voiceover artist and former actressStephen is a potato farmer and Jo is a TV presenter, voiceover artist and former actress
Stephen is a potato farmer and Jo is a TV presenter, voiceover artist and former actress
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“In the mid-80s Tim and I made the decision to concentrate our efforts on the potato trade and we both stopped a couple of individual parts of our enterprises.

“McCain’s were coming on strong and wanted more people to grow potatoes in this area and greater acreages. We jumped from 80 acres of potatoes that we had been growing when I left school to where we are today at 600 acres. In the early days we turned a lot of grass-growing land over to potatoes. We now rent a lot of additional land.

“Potatoes is massively the main enterprise on the farm and our investment has gone not just into equipment but into short, medium and long-term storage because potatoes are needed all year round, not just when they are harvested.

“We have massive, ventilated stores at Stonegrave and Wombleton. It’s all about adding value. We produce 4,500 tonnes for McCain’s with Pentland Dell having been the standard variety for many years and also Innovator. Another 6,000 tonnes are crisping varieties that go through the likes of Cockerill’s and Wolds Produce and supply Walker’s and Seabrook.

Jo in her home recording studio built by StephenJo in her home recording studio built by Stephen
Jo in her home recording studio built by Stephen
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“Our other crops are there as cash flow. We grow 650 acres of winter wheat that averages around 3.5 tonnes per acre on what is varied but largely grade 2 and 3 land. We sell our wheat forward and store. We have 100 acres of oilseed rape, 300 acres of winter oats and 100 acres of barley also in the ground this year.”

Potatoes would once have been a regular scene where Jo grew up, as her parents had the Royal Oak pub in Gillamoor which has always had a great reputation for its food, but Jo said her ambitions were not in the hospitality sector.

“I always wanted to be an actress. I appeared in Jed Mercurio’s first TV drama Bodies and on Heartbeat, but then an opportunity of a presenting job came up for the Olympics and Paralympics ‘live’ sites at London and Rio and I also worked on the Volvo Ocean Race. It was the time of my life. I became a commentator too.”

Jo met Stephen for the first time five years ago, despite having lived near him for many of her teenage years. Stephen knew Jo’s brother Johnny but had never known he had a sister.

Stephen supplies McCain and Seabrook with potatoesStephen supplies McCain and Seabrook with potatoes
Stephen supplies McCain and Seabrook with potatoes
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Jo said their coming together led to a change in her career and their marriage nearly three years ago.

“My work had meant I’d never fully committed to a relationship until I met Stephen. I decided that because of us being together it made more sense to start with voice acting, voiceover work, which I could do from home.

“Stephen has built me this wonderful professional voiceover recording studio in one of the outbuildings on the farm and I’ve now rebranded myself and refocused my activities on to voiceover work with everything from national TV ad campaigns to narration on the Channel 5 series Old Wife, New Wife; dubbing for 10 episodes of a TV drama The Girl From Oslo; also a movie The Art of Love and a lot of Netflix stuff.

“Omaze is my biggest client. It’s amazing to be able to change people’s lives, which is what I do when I call, as well as raising huge amounts for charities.”