Woman's Hour - Women in farming | A Woman’s Hour special

Episode Date: May 26, 2025

In a special bank holiday programme, Anita Rani escapes from the studio and spends the day at a dairy farm in Devon to explore the reality of female farmers’ lives.Farmer Lorna Burdge shows Anita what a day in her life as a dairy farmer involves, from milking at 6am to feeding calves, measuring grass, looking after her three children and tackling invoices in the office.We hear about a groundbreaking three-year study into the health and wellbeing of female farmers announced by the University of Exeter and Farming Community Network. Dr Rebecca Wheeler, the project lead from the University of Exeter’s Centre for Rural Policy Research, and Linda Jones, from the charity Farming Community Network, explain why the study is needed, who they want to hear from and what they hope it will achieve.Farming Today and Countryfile presenter Charlotte Smith gives Anita some of the context and policy changes of the last few years in the industry which some say have impacted farmers’ wellbeing.Anita has a cup of tea in the farmhouse kitchen and hears from three women farmers about the challenges, stresses, achievements and joys of their jobs. Joining Anita and Lorna are Sinead Fenton, an edible flower and herb farmer in East Sussex, and Caroline Millar, who has an arable, lamb and beef farm near Dundee in Scotland.What action is being taken to address some of the challenges for women in this industry? Anita hears from Rachel Hallos, the Vice-President of the National Farmers’ Union for England and Wales, an organisation which represents thousands of farmers and is looking at the experience of female farmers.And finally, Katie Davies, who was awarded Farming Woman of the Year at the National Women in Agriculture Awards 2025, tells Anita why she’s trying to inspire more women to get into farming.For more information on the three-year study on the wellbeing of female farmers, and how to take part in the research, head to: https://exe.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5pqBN1BBqIxEns2Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Olivia Bolton Assistant Producer: Claire Fox Editor: Karen Dalziel

BBC Sounds music radio podcast. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Hello and welcome to a very special bank holiday programme from a delightfully sunny dairy farm in Devon. It's early in the morning and I'm standing on a hill near Honiton in the Blackdown Hills overlooking the farm with the farmhouse, huge green fields, cow sheds, a milking parlour, lots of cows all in front of me. We're spending a day on this farm to find out what life is really like for women farmers in the UK at the moment, from the stresses and challenges to the achievements and joys.

Give you some facts, agriculture employs around 460,000 people in the UK and has traditionally been seen as a male-dominated industry. In England in 2024, 84% of principal farmers and holders were male, and only 16% were female. In Scotland that drops to just 7%. But what you may not know is that women actually make up 55% of the agricultural workforce in England and Wales if unpaid and family labour is included. Now the reason we've decided to focus this program on female farmers is there's a three-year study that's just been announced by the University of Exeter and Farming Community Network that's going to look specifically at the health and well-being of women in agriculture.

This is going to be groundbreaking research that will help provide insights and solutions for women farmers lives. So how do things like changes to farm payments, sexism, poor mental health, inheritance tax rules play into how female farmers are feeling? Well I'm going to be meeting and hearing from some fantastic women over the course of today from all different parts of farming in the UK and all stages of their careers. We're not live today but we would still like to hear from you, particularly if you're a female farmer.

You can text the programme, the number is 84844, you can email us through the website. Our social media is at BBC Woman's Hour, where you'll also see lots of photos and videos from our day here on the farm. But first, I'm going to walk down to the milking parlour to speak to the farmer here, Lorna Birch, who I'm going to be shadowing all day as she goes about her jobs. I've got my walking boots on, it's gloriously sunny. Morning cows. Let's make our way to the farmyard. Got two sheepdog to my right, calves to my left and is that Lorna in front of me? Good morning! Hi! Lovely to see you. Where am I? Where have I arrived to? What's going on here? So this is our milking parlour. We've got 20 cows that have just come in for morning milking on the left side and

on the right side. Those cows are just finishing and they're going to be going back out to grazing any minute now. You can hear the pumps. Yes. There we go. And it's what, just after seven o'clock right now, what time have you been up since? So we start at six o'clock in the morning it takes about two hours in the morning to get there's just over 200 cows and milk at the moment so it's about two hours to get milking done then we've got wash down clean up after the cows and then we've got other things to be getting on with the rest of the morning. I'm sure you have and we're gonna be finding out all about it. Tell us a bit about the setup of the farm. Who

who's here, who runs it? I know it's you, your husband Jim, three children. Tell me everything. Yeah, so it's me and my husband. We run the business in partnership, so we split all the jobs on the farm between the two of us. So while I'm in here milking, he's out there setting up the grazing for the cows, checking the water tanks are nice and clean for them for when they go back out. He'll be doing other little jobs during the day while I'm in the office doing the paperwork for the business. So we kind of we play on each other's strengths very much so it kind of means that overall we share all the responsibility quite evenly between the two of us. Well that's good. I know. How have you managed to do that?

I don't know. Good balance. You also have three children? We've got three children. One is in year five at primary school and the other two are in year eight at secondary school. So before school and after school they come out, they get involved. They love feeding the calves on the weekends, they help moving animals around. They'll come in the milking parlour. So yes, that's like a family job really. I was going to say it's a family run business. Give us a sense of where we are and what's around us and how big the the farm is. So we are farming, oh we're farming about 200 acres here so that's roughly a cow per acre from a grazing point of view. We're spring calving so

all of our cows calve within a 10 week period from middle of February. We've literally had one calf overnight and we've got one left to carve. That could happen whilst we're here. It could happen. I don't know if it will but anyway we have got a newborn calf this morning which was really exciting. The cows at the moment are producing about 26 litres each per day on this unit. So our milk is actually made into cheese. It's one of the well-known brands in the UK. That's where it all goes. And did you grow up on a farm? No. I grew up next door to one but I didn't grow up in farming. My parents actually worked in insurance. Completely

different world then. Did you expect to be doing something like this for the rest of your life? So I went to university to study agriculture and I happened to bump in to the neighbouring dairy farm's son in the pub one night and I said to him, can I come up and learn to milk cows? and he was a bit like... That's a good chat up line. I know it is! and he was a bit like, oh you know, dad doesn't really need anybody and I was like, no I just want to learn.

Brilliant. Just let me come up and learn. So I did, a couple of days later they messaged me and they said, yeah come up, you know, seven o'clock in the morning, come up and have a go and sort of ever since then I've been like oh this is actually really good I really enjoy this and so it's taken you know a few years I've done part-time milking jobs over the years and one thing another so and I've done other I've worked in other areas of agriculture over the years

before we came down to Devon but it's always been something that I've wanted to do. You are in a picture perfect spot of Britain of Britain. You are so lucky, especially today, the sun is shining, it's actually just rising over the hill in the distance. What brought you to this part of the world? So we were originally from North Somerset near Bristol and we just fancied a change. My husband was herd manager on a larger dairy unit. we had the three young children, I was working in the meat industry at the time and we were sort of running around a bit like headless chickens and we just were like right let's do this, let's find ourselves our own

farm, run our own business and the type of business we really want to be involved in, the type of thing that's going to work really well for our children and and as a family as well because we're down here on our own we've got no family network down here either yeah so it was like let's you know so we started looking uh looked all over the country actually and eventually this is where we've ended up and we love it down here. How important is it do you think that we should be talking about women in farming that we have dedicated an entire hour of woman's hour to discuss this? I think so often people forget what a really important role women can have in the industry and you know it's if you go back and there was a book I read earlier in the year you know you think like the land girls army it's so important to food production in World War II and it's

kind of been forgotten and even though there's always been women in agriculture I think maybe because they haven't been at the front of the business they've kind of been forgotten about that they're in the background you know they're the ones that keeping the meals on the table they're the ones that go out they feed the calves or they collect the eggs and those sorts of jobs historically and they've kind of been forgotten that actually they've really been doing an important role all that time as well as being a parent and you know the cook, the cleaner, the housewife and all those other jobs as well. And today all of it will be recognised and celebrated.

So where are we Lorna? Where have you brought me? Yeah so this is the calf shed these are the youngest calves they're near to the milking parlour because these are all fed whole milk so we're diverting the milk from the parlour down here for these calves to have twice a day. So this is the first job after milking really. How many have we got in here? Oh there's about 40 in here at the moment, these are the youngest ones, there's another group up the top as well which is slightly older than these. So first priority after milking is to get all the calves fed as well, make sure everybody's happy and healthy, make sure everybody's got their fresh water for the day. If they need bedding down, make sure they've got lots of fresh bedding as well. Right, Anita, we've finished feeding the calves, they're all going

to lie down now, busy digesting their food and have a little rest. Shall we go and have a cup of tea? I would love a cup of tea. And I do take milk, thank you. So we have just moved into the heart of most of the farms that I've been on. That is the farmhouse kitchen. It is very warm in here and I've got my cup of tea so I'm very settled. First, to discuss the announcement of this three-year study into the health and wellbeing of female farmers is project lead Dr Rebecca Wheeler from the University of Exeter's Centre for Rural Policy Research and speaking to me from Cardiff is Linda Jones the National Manager for Wales for the Farming Community Network, a charity

that supports the farming community which will also be involved with the study. So Rebecca and Linda welcome to Woman's Hour, thank you for joining us. I'm going to start with you Rebecca tell us a bit more about this study and what exactly you're going to be looking into. Thank you, well yeah we're really excited to work on this research, it's a three-year project as you said and we're taking quite broad approach looking at health and well-being among women in farming. That's partly because it's not something that's received a lot of research attention before, so we want to kind of get a big picture view about the issues, the concerns, the joys of working

in farming, of living in farming and hear from women themselves and we really want to understand how we can work to, I suppose, maximise the benefits and the joys that that kind of life brings but also provide the support that might be needed when women are facing health related issues. In 2021 you published another study for the national charity, the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution and that looked at the health and wellbeing of all farmers in England and Wales. So why did you decide that it was time to look at specifically the experience of women

in the industry? Well that came out partly as a result of the findings from that study we did because that highlighted that there were concerning numbers of women who were self-reporting problems with mental health issues particularly, so things around depression, anxiety, general stress, and we know that that is also related to physical health as well. That doesn't necessarily surprise us because we've been doing work in this area for a long time, but it did strike us that actually that's not something

that you hear enough of. We don't hear this talked about enough. We haven't seen enough research specifically looking at women, women's experiences, and how they feel about being a woman in farming. So really important study that you're just about to conduct. I'm going to bring Linda in here because Linda, as I mentioned, you're the National Manager for Wales of the Farming Community Network and you and your colleagues are actually going to be helping Rebecca with the logistics of this research. So what will you be doing? How will you be helping?

We've got a major role to play in this project and we're very excited about it. Obviously because the nature of our work, we're working with farmers every day of the year because our helpline is open every day of the year from seven in the morning till eleven at night. As I'm in Wales as well, we've got two official languages in Wales. So I've been doing the translation for the Welsh language survey and all the accompanying letters to go with the survey. And I'll be undertaking the Welsh language interviews as well. We are going to be disseminating this survey far and wide. We're hoping for at least 2,000 responses and it's really important that we get responses from women that live on farm but maybe work

off farm. Also women that work full time on farm as well or if you're a woman who does relief milking as well. We're going to be utilising our over 400 volunteers who in Wales are split up into regions and in England per counties to take this survey out far and wide to local agricultural shows. We'll have hard copies available on our stand at events and agricultural shows. We'll also be promoting on our social media platforms. So you've got an opportunity to fill in the questionnaire online or a hard copy.

Yeah of course because Rebecca you wouldn't be able to do this without the help of networks like like Linda's to get the questionnaires out there. Linda I should say that you live on a sheep farm too but through your role you regularly speak to female farmers all around Wales. How important is this study and do you think women are prepared to come forward and speak honestly about their experience? I certainly hope so Anita because it's a really important study as Rebecca mentioned. There hasn't been a great deal of research into this topic so I'm hoping that people will take the opportunity to express how they're feeling,

how they're feeling mentally and physically and what kind of support might possibly benefit them as well. What do you hope will come out of this study? Hopefully that the powers that be that have the funding and are able to make decisions can put in place support mechanisms for women in farming that's tailored for them and not just general mental health support or wellbeing support. It's important that any support mechanisms does actually suit people, women who are farming or are involved in farming because the pressures are different as well and it's

a lifestyle as well. The lifestyle is difficult, it's a 24-7 profession and you can't just up and leave, especially if you've got livestock. Now, Rebecca, so many times on Women's Hour we come across a subject and go, how is it possible that no one's ever thought about specifically looking at the women? But here we are and you are doing it. Three years, you're starting now. If people listening to this, women who are working in farming would like to contribute, can they get involved? How can they help you? Absolutely. I mean, we'd love for people to get involved as much as possible. And the first opportunity is to take part in the survey that Linda mentioned. That's available online and there'll be links on the project website, which I know you're going to opportunity is to take part in in the survey that Linda mentioned and that's

available online and there'll be links on the project website which I know you're going to put a link on the Women's Hour website so please do take time to fill that in it should only take around 15 minutes and it will be really valuable to hear about what you think the good bits of farming as well as the bad and you know how it helps your health and what the best things about being a woman in farming, what the exciting things. So that's the first opportunity and then later on in the study as well we'll also be doing one-to-one interviews with women to hear about their experiences in a little bit more detail as well as some more kind of

topic focused focus groups later on in the project as well. Thank you. Well I'd now like to bring in someone whose voice many of you will know, BBC Farming Today and my fellow Countryfile presenter Charlotte Smith. Charlotte's going to look at the context around female farmers' lives. Hello Charlotte. Hello. I'm going to stop asking where you are. Are you in a field somewhere? I am. I'm on a farm in Shropshire. It's a cattle farm and it is run interestingly by a mother and daughter partnership. So it's very appropriate where I am today.

Very appropriate, very good. Now you've been covering farming for 25 years, so how has the role of women in farming changed in the time that you've worked in the industry? It has changed a lot and I'm going to use the rather unscientific Lew Q measure. When I started it was vanishingly unusual to go to a farming conference or event and have to queue for the ladies because honestly I was one of only a handful of women there. Now I have to queue. So on that level there are just a lot more women around, they're more visible, they're less likely to be called or indeed to call themselves a farmer's wife and more likely to say I'm a farmer. They're much more likely to be involved in the actual farming and also in the decisions made about the farm business. I don't want to say that everything is rosy, a recent

report for the farming union in Scotland pointed out there is still sexism in this industry but it it has changed a lot just in in the time I've been covering it. So what are some of the policies that have impacted farmers lives which some would say have also impacted their well-being? Yeah I mean how long have you got? This is a time of massive massive change in agriculture. We're in what's called the transition. Moving away from the subsidies paid to farmers under the EU system to four new

systems, one each for each of the UK nations because agricultural policy is devolved. So not only are they four different systems, they're being introduced at different speeds. So in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland they are still yet to introduce their new schemes and farmers are still getting those direct payments into their bank accounts. In England those started to be phased out back in 2021, a process which was accelerated in October's budget. Now England's new schemes pay farmers public money only for public goods, things like planting trees. Farmers will say those schemes have been slow to come in. Earlier this year one was closed because it had run out of money. The government says that shows just how successful it

was. Farmers have been unimpressed, I think it's fair to say, by that decision and it just adds to the uncertainty in the industry at the moment. Then you add in the reintroduction of inheritance tax on farms which will kick in next year. That's led to massive protests across the country. We have a changing climate that impacts directly on farmers of course. They will point to trade deals which they say allow food to be imported into the UK which they wouldn't be allowed to grow here. All of that brings pressures, it brings uncertainty and farming charities say that they are seeing a big increase in demand. We asked the Department for

Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for statements and a spokesperson told us this government's support for farmers is steadfast and as part of that we're committed to tackling the mental health crisis in our farming communities. That's why we're investing billions of pounds and recruiting eight and a half thousand mental health professionals across the NHS. We're also investing five billion pounds into farming, the largest of a budget for sustainable food production with a record number of farmers in our schemes and more money being paid to farms than ever before. We will reopen a new and improved SFI scheme with more details coming this summer.

Our reform to agricultural and business property reliefs will mean three quarters of estates will continue to pay no inheritance tax at all, while the remaining quarter will pay half the inheritance tax that most people pay and payments can be spread over 10 years interest free. This is a fair and balanced approach which helps fix the public services we all rely on and that was a statement from the Department for Environmental Food and Rural Affairs. Charlotte, thank you very much. Also, thank you to Rebecca Wheeler from the University of Exeter and to Linda Jones from the Farming Community Network. Good luck with the study and I hope you get lots of people getting in touch with you who want to be involved and we look

forward to reading the results in three years time. So having heard about the study and context surrounding farming we also need to hear from the farmers themselves. I'm joined now by Lorna Burge of course a tenant dairy farmer here in Devon. Sinead Fenton an edible flower and herb farmer speaking to us from East Sussex and Caroline Miller who farms an arable lamb and beef farm north of Dundee who's speaking to us from Scotland. Welcome to all three of you. Sinead and Caroline, because we know what Lorna does, we've been with her all morning, I'm going to come to you. If you could tell us, give us an overview of what you do. I'll start with you Sinead, tell us about the types of flowers you grow, how big the farm is, who's there with you?

Hi, it's nice to be here, thanks for having me. Yep, so it's a four and a half acre farm, an organic farm growing edible flowers, so things like nasturtiums, calendula, borage, mostly for the restaurant market and the wedding market as well. So lots of those things that you'll often see in your gardens but just on a very large scale and it's just me here growing. And this is a change of life for you, right? You didn't start out, you weren't born into a farm, you've not lived on a farm. It's something that you chose to do.

You left London and had a complete change of lifestyle. Yep, five years ago, I left London. I was working in food policy, decided I didn't want to be talking about food anymore. I wanted to actually be a part of growing the stuff. So, yeah, I left London. I now live in a static caravan on a piece of land that was just once a piece of grass or a patch of grass, I should say. And I've planted lots of trees, lots of flowers over the last five years developing the business. Wonderful. And Caroline, how about you? Tell us a bit about your setup. Yeah, so this is our family farm in South Angus just north of the city of Dundee. I'm here

with my husband Ross and our two children are very involved in the family business as well. Finlay and Sophie are 20 and 17 and we produce Scotch beef. We've just finished calving 120 Hereford and Aberdeen Angus cows. We have 500 ewes that have just finished lambing and we have about 300 acres of malting barley for the whisky industry. So we're farming at just about a thousand acres across three farms here just in the east of Scotland. So were you nodding along when you were listening in to the conversation we were having with Rebecca and Linda about the need for this research and all the things that we're talking about and I'm going to start and I'm going to bring all three of you in about this which

is the sort of physical and health challenges that is one of the areas they'll be looking at. Caroline? I was listening and I do agree with a lot of the points that were made. I also am involved with a wide range of women and men across Scotland and the UK. I've been involved in National Farmers Union for Scotland and spoke to about 300 women last year as part of a study into engagement. And I also am involved with the Scottish Agri-Tourism Network. So I do on a daily basis speak to other people as well. And I think one of the things is really the juggling everything.

Sometimes you don't necessarily have a minute to yourself. There's a lot of portrayal about farmers' mental health in terms of being isolated, but quite often a lot of the people I'm working with feel completely overwhelmed and everything's too much. They're trying to juggle either running a different enterprise, the farming enterprise, working of farm, childcare, household things, and taking the sort of financial strain of the family business as well. So it's about sometimes just being overwhelmed

and having that time to make for yourself, to get up the hill and walk the dog for an hour, or to get off farm and to go to one of these events that Charlotte was speaking at, where you can get off the farm for a day and see other people. I think that's so important for your well-being. Lorna, do you think your own health takes a back seat as a woman working in this industry and is there something about the sort of resilience and the get on

with it attitude because basically you've got no choice other than to do that? I definitely agree with like the the thought that you can be very overwhelmed. We've just come into the end of a very busy carving season, we've been flat out for the last 10 weeks working around the clock, you know we're physically tired, we're mentally tired and then you've still got to make time for doing the food shopping and taking the kids to after-school clubs and catching up with paperwork in the office and it is that feeling of being completely

overwhelmed and not knowing what to do first, what to prioritize and how to spend your time. How does it even feel being able to talk about this like this in a platform like this, discussing what your lives are like with other women who can completely relate? So I've got a lot of friends on Instagram that are also farming and we will offload on each other you know difficult challenges on farm or things that have happened or just a general advice I've got a lot of friends on Instagram that are also farming, and we will offload on each other, difficult challenges on farm or things that have happened, or just a general advice, day-to-day advice. I've got one of my closest friends

who only actually lives half an hour away. We'll talk most days, and she's got children similar ages, so she is also doing the whole parent business daily juggle as well. And it's hearing that you're notuggle as well. And it's, you know, it's hearing that you're not alone as well, hearing that it's not just you that's having, you know, those struggles is really important I think. And I do try to get off-farm as much as I can. I'm the Devon Facilitator for Women in Dairy, so we have regular

meetings and, you know, that's just a space where women get together and we can all kind of share our experiences. It is always topic led, but again, it's the tea break, very important. So actually for women to be able to just connect with each other and just talk about things and offload a little bit, it's so important. Sinead, when it comes to your health, or just generally,

what are the main challenges that you've found? Yeah, I feel like I'm at a real crossroads at the moment. I've got quite a lot of physical issues that I've been having, I think, after years of just pushing myself and pushing myself and not really stopping. And like you say, that kind of having to be resilient and having to keep working because if you don't do something, that has ramifications throughout the rest of the season. And that's all caught up on me over the last year and a half. I had to take a bit of time out at the end of 2023 because I wasn't very mentally

well, done a lot of work over the last year to work through that. But it's almost sometimes when you suffer with mental health problems or kind of issues and trauma, that then starts to come out physically at some point. And that's the kind of stage I'm at right now, dealing with a lot of kind of physical issues, a lot of aches and pains. I've got bad shoulders, sciatica, bad back, bad knees. And it's just years of not looking after myself.

And I'm really having to sit with the business now and find a different way to run this business because it's not sustainable, or it's been sustainable and it's worked financially, but actually it's come at a cost for me, which therefore means it actually hasn't been sustainable. And it's really that kind of situation that I'm going through right now

of just thinking how do I actually make this work? And how do I keep working in this field for the long run without continuing to take away from my health. Do you have help? Does anyone come along and help you or is it all on your shoulders? It's mostly just me. My mom very kindly comes and rescues me every so often at weekends. She was actually down this weekend just because I am really overwhelmed. This weather at the moment is really unseasonably hot. So I've got thousands of seedlings that need constant attention and putting stuff in the ground.

But the wind is drying out the ground, the heat is drying out the ground, and I can't manage it all. And these types of situations with really key time of the year, everything that's done now affects the rest of the year. If I don't get certain things done, I don't make money throughout the rest of the year. And it's a really small window to make ends meet. You do kind of get isolated and then it's quite hard to pull yourself out of that and

actually put your hand up and say, I'm actually feeling this at the moment. So that's kind of where I've been over like the last few months. And then actually finding actually there's a lot of people that are feeling the same way. And I feel you've been really honest with us today, which I really appreciate. And that goes to all of you. But I just want to check in. How are you?

Are you okay? How are you doing today? I'm okay. I'm tired. I'll be honest, I've been a bit emotional and overwhelmed the last couple of days. But I think everything, sometimes things can get on top of you a little bit. But just doing a lot of conscious work just to look after myself, take a bit of a break. And I've definitely taken it a little bit slower. I think where I've been a bit ill, had a cold and before I would like berate myself for that,

because it's time lost on the farm and I should be doing this or doing that. But I'm just trying to lean in a little bit more to, it's obviously a sign I need to rest. So, but I'm all right. Thank you for asking. Now I've got to ask and also listen to Caroline, who's giving us all good advice, which is take time out for ourselves. I've only recently got good at this after not being very good at it at all. So it came out of a place of feeling very overwhelmed and very low. And also remember that how you're feeling is a point in time and

I might be feeling like that next week. So it is a point in time and I might be feeling like that next week so it is a point in time isn't it I'm sure I hope you hope you feel better soon but we've all been there and we all are there. Thank you. As I've got all three of you I think a lot of women will be wondering what about everything that women have to go through whether it's periods, pregnancy, menopause, all of it like how is there support? How on earth do you get through it, Caroline? Yeah, I think for me, there's no doubt that having one child during lambing time and one during harvest was not great planning. For me, it was more the social isolation and having a partner who had to just get on a combine and keep going instead of, you know, these fathers that are having three weeks, four weeks off, kind of, you know, making you cups of

tea and stuff. But literally I was looking at mine out the window. So I think that was one of the challenges. But I don't think, you know, as women, we can't get down the fact that, you know, we are given birth, we are, you know, doing a lot of the child reading that we have to contend with periods and menopause and all these other different health things. But it's about, it gets back to my previous point about trying to prioritise time for ourselves and looking after ourselves, which isn't always easy, but I think that's the only way that we can cope. I'm looking at you Lorna, because you're sitting right here and I know that you've got three

children. That's a really good question. And you've got twins of 13 and a 10 year old. So I wasn't dairy farming during my pregnancies. I was working in the meat industry at the time but that was hard enough if I'm completely honest. Just, you know, I'm just so tired and aching and morning sickness and everything else was bad enough, never mind having to run a farm. So I'm quite lucky

that we had the children before we were both full time farming. Caroline, I'm going to come to you to sort of talk about another really important part of what it's like being a woman in this in farming. So you're a former NFU Scotland board member and you were commissioned by the union to're a former NFU Scotland board member and you were commissioned by the union to write the 2025 NFU Scotland Diversity and Inclusion Report which set out a series of recommendations for how the union can improve diversity and inclusion and I should say that the NFU Scotland accepted all the recommendations. One example was that you found there was not a single woman on the board and I know

that that's now changed but you also looked into the use of language and you recommended that people stop using the term farmer's wife as it reinforces gender stereotypes. Tell me a bit more about all of this. Yeah well I'm really delighted that NFU Scotland have adopted all of the recommendations that we made and there was a wide variety of things that we looked at. But one of the areas was about making women feel valued and equal to their male counterparts within the farm. So the use of language was one of the things that people talked about, either during meetings or on an informal basis. And I think that this is a transition

from quite a traditional industry and trying to steer things into a direction where we don't have to have these sort of conversations, but it will take time. But I think NFU Scotland have shown really good leadership in this area by trying to make women feel very valued within the organisation. How do you feel about the term farmer's wife, Lorna?

I personally don't like it. In my head, and I have got friends who would call themselves a farmer's wife, and that's their prerogative, that's fine, but in my head I have the image of the housewife part of farming, not the woman going out and actively farming, whether it's a part-time role on the farm because she's also working off farm or she's got young children to care for, or whether it's somebody who has actually got a full-time role on the farm. And I think conversely, we never talk about farmers' husbands. So I think it's a term that's probably becoming very outdated just because of the way the industry is moving and how jobs and roles and responsibility within the businesses are changing as well. So I'd rather just be called a farmer, if I'm honest.

And farmer you are. Sinead, when you started in the industry, how did you find it? What were your experiences? I did find at the beginning, so I started off as a veg grower, which is probably a little bit more male-dominated, I found it a bit of a struggle and I think maybe I slightly started gravitating towards more flowers because that's more female-dominated space. And it's a lot of those shared experiences that we have, a lot of the shared struggles, kind of physically,

the way we approach things, and I felt more comfortable in that space. I remember one of my first interactions of when moving here and a local farmer had called up and told me that was in over my head. I didn't know what I was doing. I needed this equipment and that equipment. I've been able to make it work. So yeah, it's not something I necessarily think about too much anymore because I feel like for me I've proved my worth. We've discussed so much because there is so much to talk about when it comes to women in farming, but I feel like we cannot end

the conversation without talking about the positives and the joy and the achievements and what you actually love about this work as well as all the difficulties. How about you Sinead, would you encourage other women to get involved? Yeah, I mean, I love the work. I work with a very colourful, fun, and it's something that brings joy to a lot of people. It's part of a celebration for a lot of people, and it's really nice to be part of that, to know something that was once just a patch of grass now is home to a lot of wildlife.

It's colorful, it's vibrant, there's lots of noise from insects, and people get to enjoy that in their homes with their loved ones, and that's a really nice feeling that I have to remind myself of frequently when you're feeling a bit down. Caroline, what is it about this lifestyle, this industry that brings you joy?

I think one of the things that I absolutely love is I love food and I love food that's fresh from a farm. There's nothing I love better than eating our own scotch beef, you know, with our neighbors' carrots and our other neighbors' tatties. And I think that we also welcome hundreds of tourists to stay on our farm every year. And seeing them cooking up one of our steaks on a barbecue

and enjoying this wonderful environment that we get to live in every day brings me and my family a lot of joy and happiness. So I think that that's a huge positive for me. And Lorna, I have to say, you know, I have stepped out of my workplace to come into your workplace and I'm looking out of your window and it's very nice office you've got. We certainly don't take that view for granted. We know how lucky we are, like this whole area in our corner of Devon is outstandingly beautiful and we do know how lucky we are to be able to live and work in this area completely and the fact that our children are able to also

enjoy the freedoms that living on a farm gives them. The fact that they can go out and have a picnic down there by the river on their fallen down tree that they like to sit on and they can enjoy all of those things and although it is really really hard work, it's physically and mentally demanding and certain times of year it can feel very isolating and overwhelming, you know you look out that window today and you think well actually all of that struggle is worth it when you get to enjoy that sort of view. Absolutely, it has been such a pleasure speaking to all of you. Thank you so much Sinead Fenton, Caroline Miller and Lorna Burge. Thank you for giving us your thoughts on this

and I should say if you have been affected by anything you've heard there are support links available on the BBC Action Line website. Well that was a fascinating discussion Lorna but what happens now after breakfast? What other jobs have you got to do? So it varies from day to day but what we're going to go and do now is we've had a cow calf this morning she needs to check and make sure she and the calf are fine and then we need to measure the grass which the cows are going to be grazing next make sure there's enough there for the next couple of days. So we're off to check on the calf first? Yes. Hello. Ben the dog? Two sheepdogs on the farm? Yes. He

might come, he might not, you never know. Lorna today is absolutely idyllic but this is seven days a week. Yes. 365 days a year. Yes. So, you know, spring, summer, beautiful, but what's it like in the depths of winter? Very very cold, very wet quite often as well. Obviously things like milking, you can't have like your hands too restricted and we have really really cold hands. We have buckets of hot water in the milking parlour with us so we can keep our fingers nice and warm but yeah you have to really layer up lots of really high quality waterproofs are important as well yeah make sure you stay nice and

dry and the ray burn in the kitchen is basically used to dry all the clothing during the daytime so that we're nice and warm and dry again for the afternoon it really is the heart of the home and look at what we've got here we've just arrived at this tiny little glass of copse of trees and a newborn calf is sitting there with his mum. Yes so the cow herself is a cross between a Friesian and a Jersey and she has had an Angus calf, nice little brown calf and I've seen it walking around and everything. And what will you be checking now? So just that the cow looks okay in herself, she's not,

she's looking alert, she's looking at us, her ears are pricked, so she's not looking like she's uncomfortable in any way or unhappy in any way, so I'm not concerned that maybe she's not feeling quite herself after calving. And with regards to the calf, you can see the calf is also nice and alert, nice big wide open eyes, it's ears are pricked as well, it's listening to what's going on around it, we've seen it moving around as well. So I've got no concerns at this stage about either of them. So what happens next?

So we're gonna just go around the corner of this hedge into the next field, and we're gonna measure the grass there. So this whole year, the grass growth is really, really really fast. We've got these lovely warm temperatures, got this beautiful sunshine on the daylight today as well which means the grass is growing really well and so we need to just keep a close eye on how much grass is growing and so we know that we're allocating it properly for the cows. We don't want them wasting it but we also want to make sure they're getting plenty

of grass every time they're out in the field. So this is, if you imagine, a walking stick with a dinner plate on the bottom. Yeah it's a bit like a pogo stick. Yeah so as it hits the floor and beeps it's recording the density of the grass underneath it basically and then from this we can put it into a computer program back in the office and then that helps us allocate the grass correctly and then once you've gathered all the data then do you disappear into the office? I do. So how long do you spend in the office every day? So it can be up to a couple of hours and there's obviously various invoices that come through on email to deal with, there'll be just general correspondence

to deal with as well, bills to pay, there'll be some paperwork I might need to do with regards to our milk buyer or legislation that we're following, so yeah there's always something that's got to be done. Thank you Lorna, whilst you get on with the grass measuring I want to find out what action is being taken to address some of the challenges facing women in this industry. Earlier I spoke to Rachel Halos, the Vice President of the National Farmers Union. Rachel, thank you for joining me. Before we get into the NFU, tell me a bit about your own background and farming. Oh, so I'm a farmer's daughter. I never wanted to be a farmer. I saw it was

a tough life, I saw mum and dad really struggle and I went and found a job in the real world and then I found a chap that I quite liked and he just happened to be a farmer and here I am farming and doing the things that I always said I would never do. And we took on his family farm, we have two children, well they're not children anymore, they're adults now, back on farm and we've built a business that we are very proud of, we love our farm, we love what we do, we work together as a family and it's great. So reluctantly back in the world that you were probably always destined to be but then

of course you've also taken on the role as Vice President of the National Farmers Union. Who are the NFU for people who don't know? Ultimately we are a trade body, we are a membership organisation, we have 44,000 members across England and Wales and we represent those wherever we can to make sure that they have the best if you like trading basis for them to operate their businesses within but we're far more than that we're a connection we have an amazing network around the country of our group secretary network network County advisor network and we like to

believe that we're there for our farmers to actually help them solve their problems. Yeah so you have huge influence on the lives of farmers, but particularly female farmers, which is obviously the focus of this program. What's your reaction to the announcement of this three-year study? I think we need to know exactly what's going on. If we can find out what's going on, we can maybe come up with some of the solutions to help those people that need the help. We've heard lots from women today about the stresses and the challenges of being a female farmer. How is the NFU specifically supporting women farmers?

We're not experts in this field so I think we need to make that really, really clear. But what we're really good at is seeing, hearing. We have relationships with experts. We can see things, hear things, guide people. We can signpost people. A lot of our staff members are now trained to actually recognize mental health. And we have the ability to sit around a kitchen table when most people are in their comfort

zone they then are true to themselves and they're honest and open and we can hear what's going on and we can recognize why they feel like that as well because obviously we know what's going on in the industry. So we're trying to use that power to signpost our members, help our members find the help that they need. From speaking to female farmers, the issue that comes up time and time again is mental health and depression. So what do you do or can you do as an organisation to help? We need to try and show leadership in that. I've been in situations when I've been sat at a farm table doing a member meeting as you do.

Yeah. And I've had those moments where I've had a touch on the arm. Can I have a word? And you've had a conversation with the woman there and they tell you how they're feeling, they tell you what they see their partners feeling, how troubled they are. And I guess what I do to them is I tell them our story, my story. I've been there. We all have dark days, we all have bad times. And I guess it's sharing that and saying to them that you're not on your own. The inheritance tax changes announced by the Labour government last year means that from April 2026, tax will be payable for the first time on inherited agricultural assets worth more than a million pounds. Questions and concerns from farmers on this are likely to be filling your inbox. Frankly is there any time for you to be worrying

about female farmers and what they're going through? Yes, there should always be time. There should always be time to work about female farmers, farmers in general. People in general, all human beings will have tough times and we need to make, if we haven't got the time we make time Because how can we advocate them making time for themselves if we can't make time for them? Some might say there's all these initiatives, but things are still difficult for female farmers, as all the mental health research indicates.

And some might say that sexist attitudes are still prevalent in some parts of farming culture. What more could you do to tackle this? We call it out. We call it out. I call it out. I call it out. In my role I have to call it out. I have to be seen to call it out as well because that empowers other women to call it out. It's okay we can say something about this and it does need to stop. I don't, I personally have not felt

huge amounts of pressure on myself but there have been moments where you just think really and you go back you've got to call it out. It's not fair, it's not right, we should be respected for what we do. How much of a difference does having women at the helm of farm lobbying make? You were elected in spring last year. Abby Reader is currently Deputy President of the NFU, Cymru and of course Baroness Minnette Batters became the first woman to become NFU President in 2018 since the union was founded in 1908. A hundred years it took, that's all. She stepped down in early

2024. What kind of a difference has that female leadership at the top made to female farmers themselves? I think you get a different spin on things. When you're in a room and you're in a meeting and you've got women in the room, there is definitely a different take on things. We approach things from a different way. We see, we're more empathetic way and perhaps we see different ways of doing things and I think the fact that we there empowers other women to be like that. Are you listened to? Are you respected? I am now. It takes time. You've got to gain some disrespect and it's taken me, I'm now in a space where I understand exactly how I'm going to deal with this but that takes time and you've got to invest in yourself and investing and I have asked for help on that and it's working. Rachel Hallas, Vice President of the National Farmers Union, thank you so much. Thank you.

Okay I'm back on the farm it's after 3 p. 3pm and I'm with Lorna. So Lorna, what happens now? What's the next job? So the next job is to go and get the cows in for afternoon milking. They'll be making their way down any minute once we've started letting them wander in. How long will the second milking take? So it's going to take about two hours, similar time to this morning. So yeah, hopefully I'll be all done and dusted by about 6pm. Two hours of milking but also the kids will be coming back

from school? Yes they will. So how is life going to unfold now for the rest of the evening? So they'll come back from school, grab themselves a snack, obviously they'll be really really hungry apparently when they come in and then it'll be boots on and they'll be coming out and getting involved and helping. The children will feed the calves this evening, that's one of their favourite jobs to do after school. They might come in the parlour and help with milking a little bit as well or they'll just be out here throwing the ball for the dog. And what about your day then? What happens once you've wrapped up? So there's obviously

one cow left to carve so we do need to pop out and check on her later on this evening, make sure that is anything going on with her but other than that hopefully once milking's finished that is fundamentally my day over. Obviously during carving we were outside a lot more in the evenings and during the night checking on the cows but now once those gates are shut and the cows are out in the field for the evening hopefully that is my day done. And how do you decompress? What do you do to wind down? Read a book, have a can of beer, walk the dog and yeah just try to chill out as best as I can really. Yeah really important that's the kind

of message that's come through this. Well it's been incredible spending the day with you I've really enjoyed it. Thank you for opening the doors of your farm, the gates and letting us get an insight into what happens here. You are very, very welcome. It's been absolutely wonderful to have you. Right, I'll let you get on with it. I know you've got lots to do. So while Lorna finishes milking,

it's a nice opportunity for a celebration. The National Women in Agriculture Awards 2025 were held a couple of weeks ago in London, and I had a chance to speak to the winner of the Farming Woman of the Year award. Katie Davies, congratulations. You're a Welsh Hill farmer and lecturer in agriculture. The judges praised your passion for farming and education particularly. How do you feel? Yeah, just really overwhelmed. It was an absolute privilege to be nominated, let alone win.

The room was full of incredibly talented and passionate women and so it was an absolute honor. Tell us about your farm and your journey in farming. Yeah so I'm a fourth generation hill farmer from the South Wales Valley, so we're beef and sheep farmers. I've got three young children, all under eight. I'm a full-time lecturer in agriculture at Bridgend College. I'm also involved in the National Farmers Union and Vice Chair of the Morgan NFU. Yeah, and I'm a partner in the family business. So I've always wanted to be a farmer, you know, sadly because of income revenue and the way

things have played out in farming. Over the years, I've had to work off farmers, as many women have had to, to bring in extra income. Hence why I sort of went into teaching after I studied a degree in agriculture after school. So farming's my life. I'm extremely passionate about it. Katie, you just listed off everything there. You work on the farm, you lecture,

you've got three children under the age of eight. Can you, do you make time for yourself? It's really hard. It is really hard. And people often ask me that question, how do you find the time to do it? But I think, as everyone says, you want something done, ask a busy person. And I just throw myself into it. And yeah, I find the time somehow. I do

try and find time for myself and time for the family off farm and with my children. But they also, you know, being brought up on a farm they love being on the farm and they literally live and breathe it so we have a lot of family time even if it is on farm but yeah I mean it is really important I think to to try and find time just to to take a step back and just breathe sometimes. What do you love about it? What brings you joy? There's so many things. I mean, what makes me most passionate is the sort of being with nature, belonging, a feeling of belonging to the land. I feel a duty of care to, you know, to really protect the traditional farming practices and be involved in the local community. I do a lot of work with the local community, local schools, trying to educate the consumers and young people on where their food comes from. So

I feel that's really important. And obviously, being a farmer, I also take incredible pride in producing top quality, sustainable food. The farm to fork process is incredible as well. And as I mentioned, you're also a lecturer in agriculture alongside farming. Have you seen a difference in the number of female students during the years that you've been teaching and also the range of backgrounds getting women into this work? Yeah, I mean I have. I've been teaching for about 12 years now and I've definitely seen, I can put a figure

on it, but I've definitely seen an increase in females coming into the college and studying agriculture which is really, really promising. Also, females that are not necessarily from farming backgrounds which is really nice and really encouraging as an industry. We need the best people for the job, it doesn't matter what gender they are, where they come from. And sometimes some of the more successful, brilliant people come from a non-farming background. You know, I've seen that happen, you know. I'm glad you brought this up because it's been going round in my mind, you know, working on Countryfile, talking to you, making this programme. And I just thought, you know, I talk to people like yourselves who've

been in family farms and speak with such pride and passion about being custodians of the land and your belief in the produce that you're producing, but what if it's like somebody like myself who lives in an urban environment but also loves the idea of maybe getting into it as an industry? How hard is it? The issue is, it's incredibly hard to get into the industry today, unless you're from a farming background. To buy land or get a tenancy is extremely hard. There are share farming agreements and different opportunities that do present themselves. I know the unions and different organizations are working really hard to look at and to push government to try and support young people into, you know,

giving them these opportunities. Because at the end of the day, we need these people, we need these custodians of the environment and we need people to produce food for the nation. So it doesn't matter where they come from, if they're brilliant and you know they've got these innovative and inspirational ideas, you know we need them, we need them as an industry. So you know if we can bring some positivity back into the industry with these young people that are really passionate about doing this. And I've seen it first hand in the college and I've seen some very successful students go on with some incredible careers.

So it can be done just having that open-mindedness and willingness to learn and you know being inspired by someone I think goes a long way. That's my job role is to inspire young people and sort of motivate them to learn so you know if I can if I can inspire one person then I feel I've done my job. You've probably inspired quite a few listening to you speak right now. Katie thank you and congratulations once again. Thank you. That was Katie Davies, winner of the Farming Woman of the Year award.

What a brilliant day and such an important conversation around an overlooked subject, women in farming. That is all from the Dairy Farm in Devon. My huge thanks to Lorna Burge and her husband Jim for hosting us today, to Dr Rebecca Wheeler from the University of Exeter and Linda Jones from the Farming Community Network, my colleague Charlotte Smith and also to Sinead Fenton and Caroline Miller. And remember if you're a female farmer and you'd like to contribute to the Women in Farming three-year study, then head to the Woman's Hour website

for more information. I must tell you whilst I'm here though, that you can see me back in the world of farming this Sunday on Country File, visiting one of the country's largest wall depots on the outskirts of my hometown, Bradford. But for now, from Devon, goodbye. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time.

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