Held at the Stoneybeck Inn at Penrith on Wednesday 31 January, the event included speeches from Dorthe Pratt of the Sedbergh Soap Company; NFU Deputy President Minette Batters as well as Hannah Jackson who is also known as the Red Shepherdess.
Hannah Jackson – The Red Shepherdess
Gazing down at her Border collie sidekick, with a crook in her hand, Hannah said she is now being taken far more seriously when she reveals her welly-clad occupation.
A far cry from four years ago when the 25 year old Wirral lass spent her first stint on a Welsh sheep farm being shouted at.
Full of passion, enthusiasm and commitment Hannah has thrown herself into any challenge, all the time learning as much as possible. And it has paid off. The fresh scouse girl with dyed red hair has carved herself a place in a male dominated industry that she had no heritage in.
When interviewed on the family smallholding on the outskirts of the village of Croglin in Cumbria before the NFU Celebrating Rural Women event, Hannah said she is now used to the surprised reactions when she reveals her chosen career path.
From the day she arrived in the Cumbrian countryside, the young woman has spent most of her time across different farms from the Lake District to the Eden Valley, and thanks to her growing reputation much further afield.
Her trademark crook and dog, she got Fraser for her 21st birthday and he has been by her side ever since, has been viewed hundreds of times thanks to social media.
It was her progression to being a Twitter sensation that has helped to spread the word and form lasting friendships.
"I have shared my experiences on Twitter. Social media is a great way to reach out to the public and let them know what we do on a daily basis," said Hannah
"There was a downside to social media, people trying to put me down. But people I have worked for are fully supportive. They see you have a work ethic. People forget that women have been caring for the farm for generations, when men went off to fight in the war, and beyond that. Look at Beatrix Potter," said Hannah.
"When people put me down it just makes me all the determined to prove them wrong," she added.
Although it has been sheep, sheep and nothing but sheep, the first generation farmer now farm-sits for another Twitter sensation, the Herdy Shepherd, aka Lakes sheep farmer and acclaimed author, James Rebanks.
She is also delving into the world of other animals beside sheep. "I am now helping out on a dairy farm doing some relief milking, feeding up and clipping out. It was always sheep with me, but I'm now keen on working with different types of stock."
Not bad for a lass, who after graduating with a BSc in Animal Behaviour at 20, took a life-changing decision to head from the Wirral, up to Cumbria, to pursue her dreams to have a career working with animals. But it is a far cry from her original chosen career path as a marine biologist, when in 2012, Hannah spent weeks in the Canadian wilderness doing killer whale research.
It all changed for the vivacious flame-haired young woman when she was entranced by a chance encounter of a lamb being born during a family holiday in the Lakes. “I was mesmerised. It was just so magical. I knew then I wanted to be a farmer.”
Dorthe Pratt – Sedbergh Soap Company
Pronounced Door-de, Danish born Dorthe Pratt told the story of how a Cumbrian farmer’s wife developed the award winning Sedbergh Soap Company with just £40 and the help of family and friends who she paid by baking them cakes.
“I now constantly get asked if I’m the soap lady so I suppose I should be relieved I didn’t decide to diversify into making bags,” joked Dorthe who started her business in 2007 to bring an extra income stream into the family hill farm which was finding turning a profit tough with no historic subsidy payments attached to the holding.
You’ll find her products in luxurious hotels such as the Gilpin Hotel & Lake House, a Five Star Relais & Châteaux Hotel. It’s a far cry from the company’s humble beginnings when Dorthe would constantly badger her husband for space to develop her products on the farm, only to be given a power washed corner of the lambing shed and an insulated boiler suit for warmth.
Now one of their brand new spa treatments, Body Scrub with Pomegranate, has beaten off some stiff competition from across the country to win a prestigious gold award in the Natural Beauty Awards. It is Sedbergh Soap’s 20th national award.
Dorthe has lived in the UK for 25 years and had a successful IT job in the city of London before she married and up sticks to Cumbria.
“It must have been love for me to turn my back on a successful career move to a farm and change my name to Pratt,” laughed Dorthe whose humour had the all-female audience in stitches.
“I did have ideas about developing a candle making business but as a new mother I decided babies and hot wax might not be the best combination so I decided to do something else.
“I was born with eczema so I developed the soap to help with that condition. Friends and family soon started asking if I could make some products for them so I started production and began selling via stalls at farmer’s markets.
“We started off with five soaps all haphazardly made before going more into wholesale. We still make everything by hand.”
Asked by the audience if the diversified business had overtaken the farm in level of importance, Dorthe simply quipped: “When there’s stress and hard work Sedbergh Soap Company is known as my business. When my husband wants a new tractor it suddenly becomes our business.”
Minette Batters – NFU Deputy President
“I never set out to have a career in agricultural politics,” Minette told the one hundred ladies who turned out to listen to the woman who was working hard to become the NFU’s first female President at the time of writing.
With a love of horses and cows Minette, who briefly had a career in race horse training, always wanted to run her own farm and in the early nineties set out with 20 suckler cows at the tenanted (and then derelict) Barford Park.
Thanks to Minette’s dogged determination, Barford Park in Wiltshire is now a huge success with 100 suckler cows, arable and a 17th century tithe barn which has been developed into a popular wedding venue.
“The trick is to keep things simple and not be too greedy,” explained Minette when talking specifically about her wedding venue diversification.
“We only do one wedding per week so people have enough time to make arrangements and preparations and we certainly don’t charge any corkage.
“We are a predominantly grassland tenanted farm and everything we do has to stack up financially.”
Frustration with the lack of promotional exposure given to suckler beef led to Minette launching a campaign called Ladies in Beef which received support from TV star Adam Henson and the 2010 Master Butcher – Princess Anne. The campaign received huge media coverage with 170 women around the country all championing the livestock industry during Great British Beef Week – a campaign that now continues year after year.
Minette quite rightly says there are no barriers to women wanting to progress in the NFU. After all, it was a female Regional Director in the South West who talked her out of doing a Nuffield Scholarship to take on the role of NFU Wiltshire County Chairman instead.
Talking about the impending NFU Presidential officeholder elections, Minette said: “If there is a role you want you should put your hat in the ring. I am a tenant farmer with only 300 acres so didn’t think I’d be seen as large enough for the role as NFU President but many farmers are willing me on because I’m regarded as one of them.
“I got involved because if we cannot shape our own future then the politicians will do it for us.”