Yorkshire Shepherdess Amanda Owen on new show Farming Lives

Viewers of Our Yorkshire Farm will be familiar with seeing Britain’s famous shepherdess get stuck into life on her own farm. But in a new television show, set to air for the first time tonight, it is other people’s stories that she will be sharing. "It’s been a breath of fresh air because it’s not been about me,” she says. “This show is about somebody else’s stories.”

Amanda Owen’s Farming Lives sees her travel across the UK to discover other farmers’ inspirational tales. In the six-part series, set amongst some of the country’s most breath-taking landscapes, Owen discovers what makes each business tick as she immerses herself in six different farms – including those passed down through the generations, others that have been taken on by families totally new to rural life and farms that have battled for survival.

Owen explores the pressures facing the modern farmer and the sheer passion that keeps them going. “Once upon a time, if you were a farmer, that was what you did, you farmed and you’re good at farming, you’re very knowledgeable,” she says, kneading away. “Now all of a sudden you have to wear about five or six different hats - you have to be good at technology, you have to be a communicator... you have to have such a wider skill set than you ever used to. It’s about smashing stereotypes about what people think a farmer is and what it encompasses.”

Owen leaves behind her Yorkshire farm, Ravenseat, for the likes of Shetland, Newport and, closer to home, Todmorden. In South Wales, she discovers how a relatively small farm was reimagined at the start of the pandemic so that it now supports four families. Those behind it expanded their dairy herd, invested in chickens and diversified into supplying the local community via their farm shop.

"Wherever you are, farming is going through a difficult period where it’s hard to make a living off the land so to be offered the opportunity to go and see how other people are doing it and take away some ideas was fantastic,” Owen explains. “One of the farms I went to, the farmer was using the river that flowed through the land to basically sell electricity back to the grid and power his farm. That’s brilliant isn’t it?”

“I would hope producing energy might become something that is higher on the agenda and is looked at more carefully,” she adds. “I live in a national park in a listed property and that at this moment in time makes it very difficult to say look at solar panels and wind turbines and hydroelectric power. But maybe we have to change. Maybe we have to accept to a certain degree that things can’t stand still.”

Owen hopes the show will portray how farmers are affected by the cost-of-living crisis and other challenges. The price of tending the land is escalating, she says, with the cost of fertiliser, feed and diesel. “It’s really hard to make ends meet. People can look across the countryside and see a pretty life with green spaces and blue skies but they sometimes don’t see what’s going on beyond that.”

Amanda Owen’s Farming Lives airs Wednesdays at 9pm on More4 and All 4, starting tonight, January 25.