Minette Batters was the first woman to be elected President of the National Farmers’ Union in 113yrs. She’s represented the interests of over 46,000 farming businesses across England and Wales through unprecedented times, navigating the challenges of Brexit, Covid 19 and the war in Ukraine. During this time, she worked with four Prime Ministers – three of them in one year – and six Defra Secretaries of State. She stood down from the post in February 2024. 

Campaigning about the importance of British food and farming and its ability to achieve Net Zero has been a key driver for Minette. In 2020 she led the NFU on one of the most successful campaigns ever seen, bringing together a coalition of chefs, including Jamie Oliver, farmers, environmentalists, consumer groups and animal welfare experts – resulting in over one million people signing the NFU food standards petition. Minette also co-founded ‘Ladies in Beef’ and the Great British Beef Week. She has regularly engaged with different media, including frequent appearances on the ‘Today’ programme, ‘Question Time’, ‘Any Questions’, ‘Desert Island Discs’, Woman’s Hour and other national print and broadcast media. She is currently writing a monthly piece for Country Life magazine. 

Minette is mother to twins and is a tenant farmer, on the Longford Estate near Salisbury, Wiltshire. She began farming in 1998 having sold her house and negotiated the farm business tenancy, starting with fifteen beef cows but fulfilling a lifetime ambition to farm. Today the farm has a Spring and Autumn calving Aberdeen Angus beef herd, arable crops and a few sheep. The business is widely diversified, with a wedding and events venue in a 17th century tithe barn, holiday cottages, and winter grazing for polo ponies, alongside a recently restored walled garden growing native British flowers. Minette trained as a Cordon Bleu chef, and was a former amateur jockey, riding 30 point to point winners, alongside working for champion National Hunt racehorse trainer David Elsworth. 

She’s an ambassador for Farm Africa and a passionate advocate and fundraiser for the Junior Diabetic Research Foundation. She’s run in four marathons, raising over £100,000 for charity. In 2021 Minette was made a Deputy Lieutenant to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, and in July 2024 she was made a Crossbench Peer in the House of Lords.