To the casual observer its just another another farm – like hundreds I’ve visited in the past. When I arrive, the cows are peacefully chewing in the field, and a tractor is reversing on the yard.

But Cilwrgi Farm in Usk is no ordinary farm, because its owned by the Prison Service. Inmates from neighbouring HMP Prescoed spend their time learning how to farm, by tending to the dairy herd, using the robotic milking machine and helping with general maintenance.

One of those is Matthew, who’s confidently driving a tractor when I arrive, delivering the feed to the dairy heard. But Matthew had no prior experience of rural life, and he found the cows quite daunting at first. He tells me that getting used to working with them was a challenge, but I can see how comfortable he is with them now, as he mindlessly stokes a cow’s head as we talk. He describes the connection he’s made with the animals as ‘moving’ – a description I find both unexpected and heart warming, particularly as his motivation for working at the farm had just been to keep busy and get a change of setting.

The open space and fresh air are a far cry from over crowded prisons that are full to bursting, but it is hard work here. The prisoners have to be on the farm at 5am, where they will carry out a range of tasks, under the watchful eye of Farm Manager Richard Gough. Richard is an experienced farmer, who says it can be ‘interesting’ working with some of the inmates but he sees them very much as part of the team and he’s proud they’re now doing an honest day’s work.

The farm has been owned by the Prison Service since 1939, but it’s very much a working farm (right down to the farm dog Leya, who belongs to Richard). It has a contract to supply milk to Tesco with a recently installed state of the art robotic milking machine which has future proofed the farm and helped to up-skill the inmates. Hannah Priest, who’s one of the Livestock Control Managers at the farm, tells me that prisoners learn every aspect of farming, from how to stand with the animals, right through to helping to deliver the calves. They also learn empathy, nurturing and responsibility for the animals.

And it’s those soft skills that are most important, according to Dr Libby Payne, who I meet in the farm’s maternity barn, where cows are happily munching away at hay, with their calves by their side. Libby is a Forensic Psychologist who has been carrying out a research project at Cilwrgi Farm.

We talk about her work, in which she has analysed the benefits of the prison dairy. As well as the tangible skills prisoners gain, like feeding the animals and looking for signs of illness in the herd, she says what really shines through is the bond they make with the animals. Sadly, many of the men who end up in the prison system won’t have experienced that care and empathy themselves, but by working with the cows they learn the importance of compassion.

John is one of those who believes his life has been turned around by the prison farm. He’s a quiet man, who has suffered with mental ill health and anxiety in the past, but when he talks about farming his confidence shines through. He tells me that when he started working here with the cows, and the calves in particular, or ‘the babies’ as he calls them, he finally felt worthwhile.

John has now finished his prison sentence and has a full time job working and living on another farm nearby, where he’s responsible for milking nearly 400 cows. He’s just back today to talk to me, about the impact the prison farm had on him, and his dream of owning his own farm one day.

But John isn’t his real name. The Ministry of Justice told me I couldn’t reveal his true identity on air, in case it upset his victims. It’s a reminder that the men who work here at the prison farm do have a chequered past and that Cilwri Farm is far from a rural idyll. But if this farm can change the future for at least some of the prisoners who pass through it, then surely that has to be a good thing. And I for one hope John will stay on the straight and narrow.