1.05pm - Thursday 16th April 2026 344

Happy international women’s day thank you to everyone who let me use videos of them most of you within a three mile radius of Appleby, just a few of the MANY amazing women I know farming away without shouting about it this one’s for you 😍 here’s to the workers

So many inspirational women across the industry. What does it look like to be stand out and exceptional in an industry with a gender imbalance like farming. My only hope is that I’m surrounded by women who have weathered the storm, proved their worth, and stand tall in an industry based on ability, not gender.

Don’t mistake our passion for farming as caterwauling we succeed alongside and are elevated by our fathers grandads husbands brothers and sons, I don’t want to stand alongside exceptional women, or women making waves for being a woman, I don’t want to be a woman who has made history for being the first.

I want to be one of MANY unremarkable normal working women, I don’t want it to be remarkable that a woman is farming in her own right. I don’t want to “make waves”. I don’t want to be one of a handful of women at an agricultural event. I want to be one of MANY ordinary women and girls doing their thing and doing it well. Women have been farming for hundreds of years. Only now have we got the social tools to share our stories, and I believe it’s our responsibility to do so.

Here’s to the women in farming ploughing on, the ones with no social media, the women who’s work sometimes goes unnoticed, to the women who drive tractors, to the women who lamb sheep and rear calves, who plant next years crops, spread slurry and fix water pipes. Farming is stronger as one. Farmers are stronger together. #wilsonandashley