A young Cornish farmer is encouraging others entering a career in agriculture to apply to join a free scheme run by the UK’s biggest grocer.

Ed Hosking, who works on his family's beef farm near Penzance, has been taking part in Tesco’s Future Farmers Foundation.

The scheme, which is free to successful applicants, helps young farmers to develop the skills and knowledge to run a successful farm.

In addition to taking part in training workshops on subjects such as business finance, succession planning and leadership, participants also get to learn from businesses in Tesco’s supply chain and have access to specialist mentoring.

Ed, whose family farm 200 head of cattle on their suckler beef farm, has been actively involved in farming since the age of 15, when he had to take on farm work after his father was injured by a falling hay bale.

Today he continues to work on the family farm, together with other farms in the locality.

And whilst Ed is well used to the physical demands of working on the farm, he found that the sessions he attended as part of Future Farmers challenged him in different ways.

He said: "I learned a lot from the workshops, I came home from the finance workshop more tired after thinking about finance all day than I do from a day at work on the farm.

“It’s really been a brilliant experience. The amount of effort that Tesco puts into it is amazing.

"The people that you meet is a really important part of it. The speakers that we had were really good and I met other farmers from across the country.

"I would definitely recommend it to anyone.”

Applications for the new intake onto the scheme open on June 19 and close in September.