During the first lockdown in 2020, two female farmers emailed me on the same day to say that they were feeling very isolated, so we started an online group on a Friday afternoon called “Ladies with Livestock”. Each week we invited a guest speaker to build our knowledge and encourage conversation. The group has gone from strength to strength – not only do the ladies involved have a great support network, we have also learned such a lot about farming with nature regeneratively.
We now meet once a month in person on a farm, with online meetings in between. The network is now in fact a joint National Trust and Lake District national park authority project, with all the participants living across Cumbria. Had it not been for Covid, we probably would never have come together.
