International Women’s Day on March 8 celebrates females making a difference, so we spoke to a young local farmer who is driving improvements in the lamb and beef sector.
Beth Alexander (25) is a beef and sheep farmer in Perthshire.
Her family farms at Mains of Mause, between Blairgowrie and Bridge of Cally.
Post university, Beth has climbed the agricultural jobs ladder as steadily as she once climbed the hills close to home gathering sheep.
Just four years in work, she’s progressed quickly into a very important role that is driving change in the farming sector across Scotland.
This role sees Beth acting as a communication bridge between nine Scottish farms, managing their budgets and providing reports for the Scottish Government on best practice lessons learned.
After graduating 1st class honours in Agribusiness Management BSc from Newcastle University, Beth joined Quality Meat Scotland (QMS) as a cattle and sheep specialist in 2019.
She’s delighted to now be involved in the dynamic Monitor Farm Programme which will bring businesses and communities together to drive change.
Her role is to co-ordinate all activity on nine Monitor Farms across Scotland, encouraging collaboration with farmers, industry and research to seek innovative solutions.
“Growing up on a beef and sheep farm, I spent weekends and holidays working on the farm,” explained Beth.
“I enjoyed working with the sheep particularly because I loved working with my collie dog, Glen.
“As a result, I have been passionate about farming from a young age and knew I always wanted a career in this industry.
“University allowed me to meet people and realise some of the opportunities there are in the food and drink industry.
“Many of my classmates went on to work for McDonald’s, Tesco, Aldi and Morrisons to name a few.
“I wanted to find a job where I could work with farmers, not only helping them to share ideas but for me to learn and take these back home to our family farm.”
Expanding on how her job works, she said: “The Monitor Farm Scotland programme is a Scottish Government funded four-year initiative managed by Quality Meat Scotland with support from AHDB.
“We have nine farms across Scotland of different land types, business set ups and enterprises.
“My role is to co-ordinate all activity across these farms, helping to improve the profitability, productivity and sustainability of producers through practical demonstrations, the sharing of best practice and the discussion of up-to-date issues.
“Co-ordinating the full programme, I manage three regional advisers who facilitate three farms and their networks.
“I oversee the delivery of farm meetings and knowledge exchange events, providing reports for the Scottish Government and managing budgets.
“I first applied for a job as a project officer at QMS when I was still at university.
“This was my first job interview and it was very daunting going into an interview panel of men over twice my age.
“My only experience was working on our family farm near Blairgowrie, but I was keen to learn and extremely passionate about the industry.
“I was successful, I got the role. Then six months in, I applied for another job in the organisation.
“Rather than just an interview, this had multiple tasks from writing up a proposal for a technical knowledge exchange project to a group exercise of being dropped on a desert island.”
Beth was unusually young and had to overcome the challenge of being a female in a male-dominated work sector.
“I have now progressed internally three times in as many years, each with an interview process and the nerves never dampened,” she said.
“When job roles were advertised, I often questioned whether I had the experience to do the role but with encouragement applied anyway.
“This has shown to me that work ethic, passion and the right attitude are qualities employers look for just as much as knowledge and experience.
“I’ve found that people are willing to help. My advice is be bold, ask the questions and see where it can take you. Don’t underestimate yourself – age is just a number.”
