How two warring farmers from Devon - both called Derek - became a global film sensation

Derek Banbury is a third-generation cattle farmer from Devon. He lives with his wife Linda, their four grown-up children, grandchildren and Poppy the dog on a beautiful, sprawling, extremely tidy set-up on 400 acres just west of Okehampton where he has about 600 dairy and beef cattle and grows the food – barley, hay, silage – to sustain them.

While Derek himself is scruffy and stubborn, his cows gleam, his barley is drilled in perfect lines, his fences are immaculately maintained and his hedges and verges are things of symmetrical beauty.

'I like order and neatness. It makes me happy,' he says. Unlike the land that adjoins his.

'That's not farming, that's just a bloody mess. Just look at it,' he barks, as we stand in wellies in the morning mist, peering through the brambles.

This land belongs to his 61-year-old neighbour, also called Derek. Derek Gow. But this Derek has a very different approach to his land.

While 72-year-old Banbury is a conventional farmer who uses intensive practices to get the most out of out the ground as milk prices plummet, diesel prices spiral and the climate goes increasingly haywire, Gow is not.

He is a big, bearded bear of a man, who wears hazardously small shorts and has spent the past few years relentlessly rewilding his 400-odd acres, rejecting fertilisers, pesticides, hedge-trimmers and mowers; smashing up all the underground drains to create a series of ponds to attract wading birds; and bringing in great stacks of fallen trees and gorse for wildlife to live in, as well as rocks to attract snakes.

On top of that, he has bred and reintroduced thousands of water voles, dozens of wild boar and storks, wildcats, red-backed shrikes, glowworms and adders, released beavers into the wild and would give anything to bring back wolves.

So it is not surprising that, over the years, these neighbouring Dereks have had the odd run-in. About everything from leaking silage to rampaging wild boars and Banbury's obsession with hedge-trimming.

Or that when film-maker James Dawson visited Gow in 2022 to make a documentary about his rewilding and met the other Derek, he realised that any production should be about them both.

The result is Derek vs Derek, a wonderful film that has turned into a low‑key global hit, packed with gentle humour, an awful lot of effing and blinding and a vital message about the gap between modern chemical-using farmers feeding the nation and idealistic rewilders.

But also, to start with, very little compromise. 'I don't want to broaden my mind. I don't agree with him and I never will,' says Banbury of his neighbour in the early stages of the film. 'Intensive farming, that's supplying the world with food. 

The population's getting bigger and everyone is going to be happy if they've got full bellies. I've done it for 50 years and I won't change.'

As I discover when he and Poppy take me out to feed his cows at sunrise, Banbury has a few other strong views, too.

About Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves and their lack of support for farmers ('Just horrible people'). Starlings ('They come in flocks and go in my sheds, s*** everywhere and spread disease. I hate them, bloody hate them'). Not forgetting his neighbour's deep love for wolves ('Just potty. Mad').

But, right now, the most pressing issue around here is the plummeting price of milk. 'Last year it was nearly 50p a litre, now it's 38p – less than the cost of water!'

While Banbury was raised on this farm and has been running it since he took over from his dad in 1976, Derek Gow grew up in the Scottish town of Biggar.

His was not a farming family, but over the years he has worked in country parks, spent a summer at his hero, the late Gerald Durrell's zoo in Jersey, written books on conservation and is credited with the reintroduction of the beaver in Britain.

He moved next door to Banbury about 20 years ago and, for a while, was a fairly conventional farmer with about 1,500 sheep and 120 beef cattle.

'He wasn't very good at it,' says Banbury with a naughty glint. 'But you've got to be born and bred a farmer really to understand the rhythm of it.'

There do seem to have been quite a few disasters where Banbury has been called to the rescue. A Land Rover that needed winching out of trouble with his tractor. An emergency with calving. Just a couple of weeks ago, Gow drove his quadbike (along with his new girlfriend) into a pond.

But, eventually, Gow's worries about the parlous state of the planet and intensive farming practices became too much to bear.

'There should be a cacophony of natural sounds on our farms – birdsong, insects, colour,' Gow says. 'But instead we've just got all these great big green deserts.'

He's got a point. The insect population in Europe has shrunk by 80 per cent in the past three decades. And, according to the Wildlife Trusts, Britain is one of the world's most nature depleted places, with one in six species at risk of being lost for ever – including dormice, water voles and wildcats.

In Gow's opinion, rewilding is our only weapon, so a few years back he started transforming his acres into a haven for wildlife. Or, as Banbury sees it, systematically destroying his farm.

As we peer through the wildly overgrown hedges, it does look a right old tangle but is clearly teeming with life.

'Yes, it's nice to see,' Banbury admits. 'I love butterflies and bees – I wish there were more. But I've got people depending on me.'

It's hard to think of two more different approaches.

Banbury's land is all order and routine. His son James is up at 3.30am every morning to do the first milking of the day at 4am. The barns are neatly stacked with hay and silage. 

The lawns around the farmhouse and holiday cottages run by lovely Linda are mowed tidily. Even the cows look happy – and no wonder. Derek adores them. Chats to them, rubs their big bony heads, calls them his babies.

But, ultimately, everything is about the bottom line.

Over the hedge it's all very different. Not least, Banbury says, because Gow – who believes we could reverse the extinction crisis if every farmer set aside 10 per cent of their least productive land for wildlife – has deep-pocketed backers, who often stay in Linda's cottages.

But, of course, Gow still has financial worries – everything depends on unpredictable grants and donations and he has a monthly wage bill to guarantee.

And while he insists he has tried hard not to upset his neighbours, he hasn't always succeeded.

The wild boar kept escaping and chomping through dead sheep – bones, wool and all. The beavers destroyed the trees. 

The convention he hosted to explore reintroducing wolves back into the English countryside raised hackles. None of which has been helped by his rather abrasive style.

So when all gather in Linda's wonderful kitchen for an enormous breakfast, I'm expecting fireworks. But it turns out that, over the years, these two stubborn old Dereks have softened and – dare I say it – even started listening to each other.

'When I see the dragonflies and bees and birds – apart from the bloody starlings – it's nice,' says Banbury, before quickly adding: 'Though of course, I'd still rather see cattle and some lovely neat hedges on my land.'

So when Gow suggested he leave some less fertile bits of land unstrimmed and fenced off from his munching cows, he agreed. He has even cut back – a bit – on his brutal hedge-trimming.

Conversely, while Gow hates Banbury's use of fertilisers, he recognises he's a brilliant farmer. 'It's made me see that farming like this is a fundamentally kind operation. I'd want to be a cow here,' he says.

And they both love the film. Which is being shown in cinemas, village halls, barns and farms across Britain, New York, Korea, Australia and Switzerland.

So finally, as we finish our breakfast, the million-dollar question for Banbury: has he changed?

'A little bit. Yes,' he says. 'But we're still making a living here.'

He also confirms he'd be very happy to rescue Gow with his tractor whenever he needs it – 'which probably won't be very long'.

• Derek vs Derek is in cinemas now: derekvsderek.com/cinemalistings