'More people need to support British agriculture and food' says Yorkshire dairy farmer and show director at Yorkshire Agricultural Society

Dairy farmer, Rachel Coates, from Shipley, made history this year as the first female show director of the Great Yorkshire Show.

She has a family farm in West Yorkshire, studied agriculture at college and has had a connection with farming for 40 years.

Ms Coates has been a member of the Yorkshire Agricultural Society for many years and is urging more people to support British agriculture and food along with calling for the UK to be more self-sufficient in food production.

“I think people are becoming more interested in where their food comes from and that’s a big issue; food security is one of the major things we cover at the show meetings,” she said.

“The Great Yorkshire Show has always been a place to sample and see great Yorkshire food. The Food Hall is one of the main attractions.

“There are a lot of farmers that have diversifications and are producing particular food stuff that you can sample on.

“As a country, we [should] know where our food comes from and we are not reliant on food from overseas.

“In a changing world where there are things going on in other countries, we need to be more self-sufficient in the food that we produce.

“Buy British food, many farmers have diversification, lots of accommodation in the Yorkshrie Dales etc. You can support agriculture in many different ways but keep supporting [British agriculture] please.”

A lot of young people are engaging with farmers and producers, Ms Coates said.

“It’s hugely important for young people [to be interested in farming],” she said.

“Not only farming, they are still our customers, people are still going to eat, so we need younger people to be interested in where our food comes from. Young people are hugely important to us; it’s very cliche but they are the future.

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“We are finding in the farming industry that the older generation are letting [younger people] take over the reins on family farms.

“It used to be that you never got anywhere near the cheque book until you were 60 but family farms are encouraging young people to have more of a say generally and that’s a great thing that’s happening.

“One way young people are becoming interested in farming is through YouTubers and social media users that are really engaging with farmers and producers.

“It’s such an easy way to put the message across. A lot of young people are engaging, but it’s not just young people, older people are as well.

“We’ve had Olly Harrison and Joe Seels, they both have YouTube channels with [many subscribers].

“They were great at the Showground, they took part in the fashion show. It was the first time we did something like that and it was very successful.”

Technology has been a massive part of the evolution of farming and agriculture as a result of issues with labour and man-power.

“Obviously we’ve got issues with labour and man-power, so this is where technology is taking over,” Ms Coates said.

“We’ve got a lot of things happening with robotics, you may have heard people are using robots to milk cows and they go into a robotic milker.

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“We’ve got robotic scrapers and robotic machines that push up the feed to the cows. That saves jobs and time for the farmers so they can oversee all the other aspects of the animal welfare and his farm.

“Technology is huge and more is coming on and is moving the pace in the farming industry. There have been lots of evolutionary [changes] for farming.”

The public’s pique interest in farming is partly down to the popular TV shows.

“A lot of farmers don’t even realise that they are actually very popular in the general public and our worth is a lot higher than we think,” Ms Coates said.

“People are really interested in farming, they’re interested in the countryside. You’ve only got to see the popularity of all the farming television programmes that are on at the moment.

“They are one of the most popular programmes that go out on television and they’re all set in Yorkshire as well. That’s really fuelling people into farming and bringing it to life a bit.

“There are also a lot of celebrities that are on those programmes but they can chat also to real-life farmers.

“A lot of the innovations are centred around climate change, so it’s all going down the right line.

“The message is that farmers are the solution not the problem, we have the solutions to climate change in our gift and trying to make sure the innovations come forward and we can access the things that will help with that.

“That’s what I think is positive about farming at the moment, there’s a lot to look forward to, we should be proud of what we are doing, we should be proud of the fact that the public holds us in high regard and there’s a lot of young people coming forward.”