The Daily Telegraph

NFU leader: men did not believe I was boss

- By Christophe­r Hope CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPOND­ENT

THE first female leader of the National Farmers’ Union in its 110-year history has told how she has had to overcome sexism in the farmyard by reminding people coming to her farm that she is “the boss”.

Minette Batters, a beef farmer from Wiltshire, told how she had to make clear to visiting delivery drivers to her farm that she was in charge.

She said: “I can always remember somebody delivering something to the farm and saying, ‘Can I see the boss?’. And I said, ‘I am the boss’.

“And he looked me up and down and he looked very surprised that I was going to get in the loader, put the pallet forks on and unload the delivery.

“There is a lot of that and often you get phone calls from people saying, ‘Can I speak to your husband?’.

“So a lot of women suffer from that. It is more interprete­d by the outside world as being a male industry than those working within it.”

Ms Batters, 50, a mother of two, also called for less fruit to be sold in plastic wrapping. She urged retailers to learn the lessons from greengroce­rs who tend to sell loose fruit not covered in plastic. She said: “Addressing packaging and plastic has to be a core priority. We are the producers of whole foods and the more we can take out of plastic packaging, the better.”

A recent report in 2016 found that two thirds of plastic household waste is sent to landfill or incinerate­d each year.

Ms Batters said it was wrong that hardier root vegetables are wrapped in plastic when they are sold to consumers. She said: “We all remember when we were young buying swedes from the greengroce­r. It is important that food is protected, but if we can all be committed to taking out more plastic and behaving really responsibl­y for the environmen­t in how we recycle, that has got to be a good thing.

“We have become fairly plastic-obsessed and we still see local greengroce­rs selling things without the plastic.

“Everybody is committed to trying to use less plastic and if we do, to make sure we recycle responsibl­y.”

 ??  ?? Minette Batters, the first woman to lead the NFU in its 110-year history, has told of her battle against sexism
Minette Batters, the first woman to lead the NFU in its 110-year history, has told of her battle against sexism

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