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The Documentary Podcast

Follow That Tractor

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.32.6K Ratings

🗓️ 12 June 2016

⏱️ 50 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Each month in a flat piece of English Fenland, a site the size of 40 football pitches, hosts the biggest second hand farm machinery auction in the world. It is both uniquely British and international – buyers from four continents arrive by truck, taxi, or hire car with their tractor shopping lists and hopes.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

On an area of the size of 40 football pitches, this is the biggest monthly second-hand farm machinery auction on earth. It attracts buyers from all over the

0:16.8

world. So how does it feel to be a top auctioneer focusing the world's attention on a mighty machine for sale.

0:26.7

And if you buy a big tractor, then how do you fit it in a shipping container to send it

0:31.7

on its way? I'm Susie Emmett and here on BBC World Service

0:36.3

I'd like you to join me for a day here to follow that

0:43.2

follow that tractor.

0:41.7

So let's meet some buyers to find out what they have on their tractor shopping lists.

0:49.7

My name is Arach, I'm from Poland.

0:52.1

I'm interested, maybe a little bit older

0:54.8

tractor, everything what we can sell in Poland and good price and very quick.

0:59.4

I'm learning now. Last month it was first time and now it's second time we are here to make some

1:06.1

money and no loss of course.

1:08.7

My name is Ali. It's a long journey from East Africa, Kenya to London, Heathrow, then from Heathrow,

1:19.0

higher a car and drive to Cambridge auction. When I started here I started with two tractors but now I have a

1:26.4

capacity of buying 15 to 20 tractors every month and the demand is very high in my country.

1:34.0

So hopefully I can extend even to the neighboring country, Tanzania, Uganda, and South Sudan.

1:40.0

That's my ambitions now.

1:42.0

If you can fail to your people there and grow the economy of the country, the economy of the country really depends on agriculture, that's really my pleasure.

1:52.0

Yeah. That's really my pleasure.

2:02.0

My name's Don Haparachi and I'm today here to buy for Sri Lanka, Thailand, Cyprus, Cyprus, Norway, Denmark, Sweden.

2:07.0

My shopping list today is diggers, small tractors, grass cutting machinery, lifting gear, small trailers, big trailers, plows,

2:20.7

so I'll probably buy stuff but it's not in my list.

...

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