Subscribe to trusted local news
If you are accessing this story via Facebook but you are a subscriber then you will be unable to access the story. Facebook wants you to stay and read in the app and your login details are not shared with Facebook. If you experience problems with accessing the news but have subscribed, please contact subscriptions@thestrayferret.co.uk. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever. By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.
- Subscription costs less than £1 a week with an annual plan.
Already a subscriber? Log in here.
02
May
The fifth-generation Boroughbridge farmer helping the industry thrive in the digital world
It may be one of the oldest and most traditional annual events to be held in this part of the world, but even the Great Yorkshire Show has to move with the times.
This year, the livestock shows and equestrian events will still be held, just as they have been since 1838, but if you check the social media channels you’ll find plenty going on in the digital world too.
One of the people responsible for this will be Rebecca Wilson. She’s a fifth-generation farmer from Boroughbridge whose Instagram account, @rebeccawilsonfarming, has turned her into something of an ambassador for the industry.
With nearly 52,000 followers, her takes on subjects including women in farming and environmental sustainability are reaching an audience far beyond Yorkshire.
This July, she’ll be applying her digital know-how in the service of one of the recurring constants in her life.
The Stray Ferret caught up with Rebecca at the countdown launch of the Great Yorkshire Show on Friday. She told us:
I’m really delighted to be working with the show, ahead of the event, to promote it. We’ve done some social media content, and actually on the day I’ll be going round and taking a look behind the scenes, homing in on some of the things you might otherwise just walk past.
The only Great Yorkshire Show I’ve not been to was when I was about six weeks old, so on a personal level, the show holds a very special place in our family’s heart.
My dad’s a life member – he's only missed one show too, when he was at school – so we have a long-standing tradition of attending it, and enjoying it as a holiday and a catch-up.
Show director Rachel Coates (centre) with some of the prime movers behind this year's show.
But Rebecca’s journey from Boroughbridge to the showground in Harrogate has not been a simple 20-minute drive. She has a degree in human, social and political sciences from Cambridge University and a master’s from the Royal Agricultural University, where she was named alumna of the year.
She said:
I was encouraged by my parents. Farming has been undergoing challenges for quite a few years now, and having done well at school, it would have felt like an opportunity missed if I didn’t go and do something different.
That was my first real experience of mixing with people not from a farming background. I didn’t really see it at the time – I didn’t realise the opportunity I had. Now, looking back, I realise I could have talked to them about farming even more!
Whether Rebecca’s university friends would like to have heard “even more” about farming is a moot point, but she is sure that they and the public generally would be a lot more receptive now, over a decade later.
She said:
Interest in farming has changed since then. I think we can put that down to, hopefully, people like me doing things on social media and just being open to talking.
But also – I hate to say it – the Clarkson’s Farm effect has really piqued people’s interest. They have genuine questions, and I think we’re in the best place to answer them.
I don’t necessarily want the mainstream media or anti-farming organisations to be answering questions about farming. I want me to be answering them.
Rebecca Wilson.
To do that, Rebecca is trying to cover as much ground as possible – physically, by travelling around the country and attending events, and virtually, by getting her point across through social media.
And she hopes that her efforts – and those of others like her – might encourage more young people, and more women in particular, to follow suit.
She said:
I want the next generation of young women to see me and think ‘if she can do it, I can too’. What I’m doing is not straight farming – it is doing things like this [i.e. being interviewed], it is standing up on stage or recording a podcast, and I want people to see me and think ‘I can do that’.
I think we’ve got an unrivalled opportunity now, because everybody has a phone, don’t they? Social media isn’t all good – don't get me wrong – but I want to tell our story.
0