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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
Joanna Partridge

Minette Batters: ‘I feared farmers would be used as a pawn in trade deals – and that’s what happened’

Minette Batters with Basil the black and white dog posing in front of cattle feedingt hrough a railing
NFU president Minette Batters on her farm in south Wiltshire with her Simmental cross cattle and dog, Basil. Photograph: Adrian Sherratt/The Observer

There are few jobs that allow you to see the fruits of your labours, season after season. Minette Batters has one of them. She has been producing beef, lamb and crops on 150 hectares (370 acres) in south Wiltshire for almost a quarter of a century – the place where she grew up and which was farmed for decades by her parents.

“The fences weren’t here. The barn didn’t have a roof, it was derelict,” says Batters, recalling the state of the farm when she began running it in 1998.

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