Minette Batters was the first woman to be elected President of the National Farmers’ Union in 113years. 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.

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’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.

1. Curriculum based learning of food production https://www.farminguk.com/news/children-have-huge-lack-of-food-and-farming-knowledge-nfu-says_48601.html

2. Learning to cook and the importance of good nutrition https://www.theguardian.com/food/2023/jun/18/minette-batters-we-need-a-success-story-for-wild-spaces-but-also-for-farmers-and-food

3. Nature and the natural environment https://www.countrylife.co.uk/comment-opinion/minette-batters-the-peppering-project-is-a-blueprint-for-delivering-food-and-nature-security-across-the-country-in-a-way-that-rewilding-on-its-own-never-will-270118

4. Exercise and sport https://impactreport.womeninsport.org/

5. Politics https://www.farmersguardian.com/news/4176394/last-press-conference-nfu-president-minette-batters

6. Value of the rural economy https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/the-rural-economy/

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Ian Green discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Ian Green is a writer from Northern Scotland with a PhD in epigenetics. His debut fantasy trilogy The Rotstorm began with the Sunday Times bestseller The Gauntlet and the First Beneath. His short fiction has been widely published and he won the BBC Radio 4 Opening Lines competition, the Futurebook Future Fiction Prize, and was shortlisted for Best Newcomer at the British Fantasy Awards. His biopunk eco-terrorism thriller Extremophile was one of Financial Times’ Best Science Fiction Books of 2024 and was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award and Dragon Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. His swashbuckling new book The Deep and the Drowned is out now from Head of Zeus.

1. The British Fantasy Society https://britishfantasysociety.org/
2. The Last Blade Priest by W.P. Wiles https://www.grimdarkmagazine.com/review-the-last-blade-priest-by-w-p-wiles/
3. The Gormenghast books by Mervyn Peake https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/titus-alone-peake-gormenghast-trilogy-review-essay/
4. How much fun having kids is https://ifstudies.org/blog/why-bother-having-kids
5. Historic European Martial Arts (HEMA) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=763THsqZ_ng
6. Nature immersion https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/insight-therapy/202606/seeing-green-nature-immersion-has-its-benefits

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