Izzy Bell

Izzy Bell

No two days are the same, no two views are the same. That’s why I like it!

Izzy is quite a rare breed, a young person who’s stepped into farming. Izzy, who’s 17, lived in Sutton Coldfield, near Birmingham, until she was nine, and her family moved to Shropshire. It was a place she knew quite well: ‘I used to come here and visit my grandparents, who've got a smallholding, and a small flock of sheep. They used to have donkeys, and my uncle had pigs. When I moved here, I wasn't really sure. But I’ve always loved working with the animals and that progressively got more of an interest of mine. I bought chickens, and ducks. And I used to work with a man down the road, who gave me a ewe and two lambs, and I bred from them. Now I’ve got my own little flock.’

Izzy’s passion for animals, and her time spent helping farmers in the area, helped her make the decision to study at Holme Lacy agricultural college, near Hereford. ‘I do college three days a week, and the other two days, and some days on the weekends depending what's going on, I come and work at John Heighway’s. I help out with sheep, cows and anything that sort of needs to be done.’

‘Sheep was my main thing, but I didn't really have much experience with cattle. So I was quite nervous starting off, but I slowly built confidence.’ Over time Izzy will build up skills that will include tractor work, learning about farming with the common, and balancing the books. She has a strong drive to farm, and the ambition to continue. ‘It's not just a five-day a week job, it's not nine-to-five. It's twenty-four hours, seven days a week. And then there's people, you know, in office jobs or something, and they're being paid a hell of a lot more.’

While she’s keen to learn from working in different farming environments, Izzy sees farming as her future. ‘It's gonna be very hard to move on. There's a lot of people that are starting to shy away from it, because it's so difficult to make a living. But I think going into the future, people are going to realise how much they really do rely on farming. There’s a lot of unknowns, but I think time will tell.’

Izzy can’t quite put her finger on one thing that she loves. ‘I think it's just, no two days are the same. It can be repetitive, like in the winter you're feeding and feeding and feeding. But there's always something’s a bit different, just watching over the animals, and then no view is the same. When we’re lambing, there's no lamb that's gonna be the same. That's why I like it. You're not sat down, you're moving about. And if you’re having a bad day, you can just go out, and it's just nice, especially here, in the hills, you've got the views, you've got everything.’