Alex James: A visit to a farm in the fast lane

It's a weird one, agriculture. On the one hand, it's a job that nobody seems to want, the ultimate arduous, thankless, profitless occupation – the suicide rate among farmers is higher than in any other profession. On the other hand, farming is top of the list for those who have absolutely everything, the ultimate "happily-ever-after" set-up. If you're just incredibly fabulous, farming is the only serious choice. Look at Sting – farmer. Look at Paul McCartney – vegetable man. Check out Roger Daltrey – trout grower. Liz Hurley – pig-keeping lady farmer. The Bamfords – billionaire digger inventors turned organic-luminaries. Even Prince Charles. It's the pleasure of kings and queens.

I spent an afternoon with Jodi Scheckter last week. He's an ex-Formula One champion and has the best farm I've ever seen, probably the best farm in the world – Laverstoke Park in Hampshire. It's a biodynamic Willy Wonka job – champagne vineyards, the rarest cows in the world, labs full of men in white coats and mass spectrometers for analysing soil – all utterly fantastic.

Farmers always have a lot to say to each other. Jodi whizzed me around Laverstoke at Formula One speed talking non-stop. We stood still in the library for a good 30 seconds while he showed me his unique collection of rare books on grasses. Farmers are always busy because there are always six things that need doing on a farm. Here are mine; haven't picked the apples; haven't fixed the gate in the back garden; still haven't got the pig pregnant; haven't... actually it's way more than six, but you get the picture. It's impossible to have a farm where there are less than six things that need doing because the bigger and more sophisticated the set-up the more things are left undone at any particular time.

I think Jodi's "to do" list was probably a bit more ambitious than mine. He won a Grand Prix in a car with six wheels. He's doing something similar for agriculture at Laverstoke.

Ox off the menu

I wanted to do an ox roast at our New Year's Eve party. Unique, I thought. Scheckter has already had his team design him an ox-roasting rotisserie. Looked amazing, but he spoke of it with the kind of pain I detect when normal rich people talk about their swimming pools. Cottage pie, instead. I think.

Mozzarella on tap

Laverstoke is home to the biggest herd of buffalo in the country. I thought they were mad moose-looking things, but if you didn't know, you'd probably think you were looking at a cow. The milk is similar to Guernsey or Jersey: rich, creamy, delicious. Whenever I visit another farm, I always see something I really want. Scheckter's got an automatic mozzarella generator, shipped in from Italy. Milk in and mozzarella out. One can only stare and wonder.

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