{"id":40707,"date":"2026-05-29T17:08:59","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T17:08:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demo4.dedicatedhost247.com\/news\/baroness-batters-warns-uk-must-act-now-on-food-security-books-entertainment\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T17:08:59","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T17:08:59","slug":"baroness-batters-warns-uk-must-act-now-on-food-security-books-entertainment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demo4.dedicatedhost247.com\/news\/baroness-batters-warns-uk-must-act-now-on-food-security-books-entertainment\/","title":{"rendered":"Baroness Batters warns UK must act now on food security | Books | Entertainment"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\"Baroness<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/p>\n

Baroness Batters says UK farmers are beset by uncertainty and Rachel Reeves, right, isn’t helping (Image: Jonathan Buckmaster \/ Express)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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When I call to chat to Baroness Batters about her new memoir, she is busy helping a calf through a traumatic arrival. The former National Farmers’ Union president, who is now a crossbench peer in the House of Lords, makes no apology for the delay. Catching her breath before returning to the job at hand, she says: \u201cI\u2019m just doing a really difficult calving, so you\u2019re going to have to give me ten minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The moment is typical of an intensity of purpose that has not slowed since 1998. That was the year she was married and heard a family friend \u2013 making a speech on behalf of her father \u2013 praise the quality of her homemade lasagne, as if this was her most notable achievement to date.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIn that instant, I realised I didn\u2019t want that life and wanted to do more,\u201d says the fifth-generation tenant farmer. \u201cI didn\u2019t know what my battle for a personal \u2018gold medal\u2019 was going to look like; I just knew that it was down to me to turn my life around and make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Read more:<\/strong> Lisa Hogan details \u2018biggest challenge\u2019 on farm as they wait for council decision <\/a><\/p>\n

Read more:<\/strong> ‘Naive’ Rachel Reeves slammed over Britain’s most hated tax as families hit hard <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Baroness<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/p>\n

Baroness Batters working on her 300-acre farm in Wiltshire (Image: Jonathan Buckmaster \/ Express)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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She has been doing just that ever since. Shortly after her marriage she negotiated the tenancy of Barford Park Farm with her father\u2019s landlord and began building her own business from just 15 cows. In 2011, she launched Ladies in Beef with Princess Anne at London\u2019s Butchers\u2019 Hall, determined to reshape farming\u2019s male-dominated image. In 2018, she was elected as the first female president in the National Farmers’ Union\u2019s 118-year history. She held the post for six years, following re-election, and during a period of unprecedented agricultural crisis. She entered the House of Lords two years ago.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Through all this she has maintained her tenant farm, several businesses and her family. Now aged 58, Minette Batters has shared her story in her first book, Harvest, a deeply heart-felt homage to farming, family and food production.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Soon she\u2019s back on the line with a note of relief in her voice after the calf is safely delivered. Explaining why the calving was so tricky, she says of the mother: \u201cIt\u2019s a heifer \u2013 a cow that\u2019s not had a calf before. Sometimes they have problems.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cShe wasn\u2019t having regular contractions. I normally leave them two hours and if they haven\u2019t made any progress I help them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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She walks me through the process with matter-of-fact precision: gloved up and pulling calving ropes in time with the contractions and \u201cnot just wrenching something but working with it\u201d, as she puts it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe heifer is now up, I\u2019ve left them to bond. If the mother doesn\u2019t want to take ownership, you\u2019re in trouble. For me, cost goes out the window. If a cow needs a caesarean, you do what you have to do and don\u2019t think about it until afterwards. You\u2019re running 24-hour care for your livestock, and calves don\u2019t wait for business hours.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It\u2019s this devotion \u2013 to her animals and to the industry she was born into and has spent decades fighting for \u2013 that has made her one of the most influential voices in British agriculture. Describing how the journey began with that wedding speech, she says: \u201cMy failed school days flashed in front of me.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cYes, I was the life and soul of the party, I could cook a bit, and I was a moderate rider, but that was it. I felt I\u2019d been struck by a force so much bigger than myself, and said to myself that my wedding day would be the last day of the old me. I didn\u2019t know what I would do, but I knew that my epitaph would say more than \u2018she made a good lasagne\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Soon she had secured the farm. \u201cI vowed to build the best business I could from scratch,\u201d she says. \u201cI would work every hour that ever existed. I would make my mark.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Minette<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/p>\n

Minette Batters, in white, riding horse Special at Badbury Rings (Image: Courtesy Baroness Batters)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Growing up in Downton, South Wiltshire in the 1970s, she was dyslexic, disruptive at school and often \u201cfairly unruly\u201d. Her late father ran the farm like a military operation. Their only family holiday together was going to the Royal Show, the largest agricultural show in the country.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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When she expressed interest in agricultural college, her father\u2019s response was blunt: \u201cWomen don\u2019t farm. We don\u2019t have a succession legacy, so neither you nor your brother will be able to farm here.\u201d But she was determined. Having worked as an amateur jockey, assistant racehorse trainer, and Cordon Bleu-trained wedding caterer, she negotiated directly with the landowner to take on the tenancy of Barford Park Farm, selling her house to fund it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Soon other tenant farmers in the region recognised that she was a force to be reckoned with. \u201cI began to realise that I wanted to change the status quo rather than accept it,\u201d she says. \u201cI wanted the common perception of farming as male-dominated to be reconciled with what it really is: family-run farms nearly always run by men and women working together.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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When local farmers urged her to stand for the NFU she was sceptical. By this point, her marriage had broken down and she was running the farm single-handedly. In her book she writes of telling them: \u201cI cannot see anywhere on earth that a single mother running a farm she doesn\u2019t own could be a national NFU office holder.\u201d One of them replied: \u201cAnd that\u2019s precisely why you must stand. You\u2019re one of us, a tenant farmer.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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She was voted in as deputy president before becoming president, working with four prime ministers. She discovered that they wield enormous power.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIf you speak to them and make the case well enough, they can overrule a department and make a decision,\u201d she tells me. \u201cThat happened with both Boris and Rishi.\u201d Her relationship with her father, who suffered a severe head injury as a young man and later dementia, was complex. \u201cWe were probably very alike, both being very headstrong,\u201d she says. \u201cI think he would be very proud of me although he probably wouldn\u2019t say so.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Harvest<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/p>\n

Harvest by Minette Batters is out now (Image: Ebury)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Telling how she learned from the years when she was at loggerheads with him, she says: \u201cI kept pressing at the same door when what I needed to do was step back and approach things in a different way.\u201d It is a lesson she applies to everything now. She turned down a CBE twice while in post, because she felt it would compromise her independence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And her workload was relentless: two phones, three email addresses, two children and a farm to run. \u201cI found leadership at the NFU mind-blowingly lonely,\u201d she admits. But she also found her voice. She is especially dismayed by the confusion in which farmers are operating. \u201cWe left the EU a decade ago without a plan for farming, other than to produce a lot less food and import a lot more.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cTen years on, the world is upside down with geo-political challenges and climate change and we still don\u2019t have a plan. I\u2019ve just put a bull in with my heifers to calve, but I have no idea what the national plan for farming will be in spring. British farmers are beset by uncertainty.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In the Lords she was tasked to lead a major independent farming profitability review for the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, and delivered 57 targeted economic recommendations. Five months after publication she is still awaiting feedback or implementation. Her frustration is palpable.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe have to shore up our food security,\u201d she says. \u201cWe are 70 million people living on an island. We have to get real. We\u2019ve got to be producing food and delivering for nature at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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She fears the distraction of a Labour leadership contest will worsen the situation. \u201cIf we go into a full-on leadership election government departments will go into lockdown,\u201d she says. \u201cThen what will happen is another reshuffle. Getting a new ministerial team up to speed will lose us another year. We\u2019ve got to be producing food and delivering for nature at the same time.\u201d As for the controversial family farm tax, she describes it as \u201cthe straw that broke the camel\u2019s back\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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She says: \u201cEven though the threshold has been raised, most farmers still think the family farm tax should be axed. I don\u2019t think the conversation has gone away.\u201d Her farm now includes spring and autumn calving Aberdeen Angus cross suckler cows, sheep for grazing, spring barley, a wedding barn seating 150, holiday annexes, and a walled flower garden she bought from her landlords in 2020.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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She says of British produce: \u201cWe\u2019re currently in the asparagus season. It is unique. Our food is a most glorious asset.\u201d But the challenges are always mounting. \u201cFixed costs have gone up over the past five years by 30%,\u201d she says. \u201cRed diesel has doubled since the war in the Middle East.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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As a tenant farmer who does not own her land, she has told her twins George and Holly, both at university: \u201cGet a skill outside farming. Don\u2019t presume it will be here.\u201dDespite all the challenges of trying to turn a profit on her own farm with a small team of local workers who depend on her for their livelihoods, her new life in the House of Lords feels exciting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI\u2019m still learning the ropes, but after a decade of influence in Parliament from the outside, it\u2019s liberating to return to being me \u2013 a tenant farmer from Wiltshire \u2013 but still able to influence our national way of life.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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She laughs at the suggestion that since leaving the NFU role her life is calmer. \u201cActually, it\u2019s busier than ever. At the NFU, I had a huge team of staff, but on the farm there is no margin for any of us to fall over.\u201d She wants young people to understand farming is not a backwater industry but one at the cutting edge of innovation. \u201cThe UK has an enormous opportunity to lead the world in an agricultural revolution: more food on less land with less cost,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And that heifer she calved this morning? By the time we finish talking, the calf is up and drinking. Mother and baby are bonding. It\u2019s the kind of victory that has defined Minette Batters\u2019s journey from overlooked to indispensable.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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