Farmers do not bat an eyelid if I breastfeed, says Owen
THE Yorkshire Shepherdess has suggested that “gnarled old hill farmers” can be more open-minded about breastfeeding than city-dwellers.
Amanda Owen, who has breastfed her nine children over a period of 15 years, said people were wrong to make assumptions about country folk.
She said: “The number of times I’ve been at the auction mart with a papoose on my back, breastfeeding a baby among all those gnarled old hill farmers, and no one bats an eyelid.
“And then you read about somebody being thrown out of a cafe for breastfeeding and you’re like, ‘Hang on, who’s the most open-minded?’ It’s maybe not who you think.”
Owen, 48, told Radio Times she had never encountered sexism in the Yorkshire Dales farming sector, adding: “I’ve always found agriculture, particularly working outdoors, very welcoming if you’ve got the enthusiasm, along with a certain amount of humility and an ability to look at how it’s being done.”
Owen made headlines last year when she split from her husband, Clive, with whom she appeared in Channel 5’s Our Yorkshire Farm. The break-up led to the end of the show and they have separate projects: Clive and one of their children,
Reuben, star in a spin-off, Beyond the Yorkshire Farm, while Owen presents Farming Lives, a documentary on Channel 4. The pair continue to run their farm and raise their children together.
While Owen visited British farms for her new series, she was not away from home for long. “We go for the three-day rule: three days is the maximum number
of sandwich boxes and stuff that we can get prepared and the maximum amount of carnage that I can cope with on my return,” she said.
In Farming Lives, which will air on More4, she meets farmers who take different approaches to making ends meet.
Owen said her media career, which includes TV series, books and an Instagram following of more than 500,000, is more lucrative than farming, adding: “The irony is not lost on me that taking pictures of sheep, writing about sheep and telling stories about sheep, absolutely is more profitable than doing anything with the sheep.”