Catherine Sanderson 24 North Yorkshire
The whirlwind of positivity Catherine bought to her NSA Ambassador interview is indicative of her approach to everything in life. She went into partnership with her grandparents two years ago, already updating husbandry practices on the farm, based near Thirsk, and doubling sheep numbers by adding 100 Swaledales to the existing 100 Texels. She says: “I’ve invested in different breeds so we can produce prime lambs and Mule gimmers to access two different markets and be less exposed to changes in prices. I am also trying to improve the quality of my stock all the time, so our sheep will stand out even if markets are flooded.” Catherine’s plans include more sustainable use of wormers and antibiotics and more performance recording – as well as continuing to increase numbers so she can reduce the amount of time she spends shepherding for other people. One to watch: Keen to educate the public and add value to an existing diversification project, Catherine plans to offer farm tours to people who stay at the farm’s holiday cottage.
Catherine completed NSA Q&As throughout 2018
March
- What was the biggest surprise for you attending the first NSA Next Generation Ambassador session? How well everyone got on. I was quite nervous because I'm not very good at talking to new people, but after the session I felt like I'd known them all for ages!
- What will be your favourite thing about the clock’s changing on 25th March? Lighter evenings.
- If you were Prime Minister for a day, what single thing sheep-related thing would you change, and what single non-sheep thing would you change? Sheep related – I’d ban non-stun slaughter. Non-sheep related - I’m not sure, but I'd definitely get a selfie with the queen!
- If you could swap your farm (or the farm you work on) for the farm of one of the other NSA Next Generation Ambassador’s this year, which one would you chose and why? Right now, I would probably pick Kirree Kermode’s farm on the Isle of Man, because she somehow managed to avoid pretty much all the snow from the Beast and Storm Emma!
April
- What was the highlight of lambing this year? That one day when the sun came out!
- How are you getting on with meeting the targets you’ve set yourself as an NSA Next Generation Ambassador? Not too bad. I said I'd aim for no more than 10 pet lambs and so far I only have 2 and have my fingers crossed I can get them mothered on.
- If you could give the general public one fact about sheep farming, what would it be and why? That wool is the most sustainable fibre and a great carbon store , so we should utilise this great resource more that we do.
- The tough spring conditions have caused high lambing losses and stunted grass growth for most places. If a genie offered you more grass growth, more live lambs on the ground or one other wish, which would you chose and why? I'd rather have more grass than more lambs because there's no point having more lambs if there's nowt for them to eat.
- If you were asked to step in at the last minute and compete at the Commonwealth Games, what would be your best discipline and why? I'd probably skip the athletic bit and help out in crowd control, as it can't be any more difficult than trying to get through a mob of hungry ewes with a bag.
May
- What’s keeping you busy at the moment, and what job do you really need to get done but can’t find the time for? I've just finished giving the lambs their first clostridial/pasteurella vaccine, cocci drench and white wormer for nematodirus. Now I'm on overseeding our pollinator lay with more red clover to meet the stewardship scheme specifications. I have a list of indoor jobs but they'll have to wait till it's less sunny!
- How is your 2018 lamb crop performing so far? They've really grown the last week or so (since the sun came out!)
- Defra has just closed its ‘Health and Harmony’ consultation on post-Brexit agricultural regulation. Environment, health and welfare were given higher priority in the paper than food production. What are your thoughts on this? I don't think most farmers will actually have to change what they do that much when the new scheme comes out. What will have to change is our mindset. We’ll have to think outside the box and be vocal about how what we do is good for the environment and animal welfare. Many things can benefit both sheep farming and wildlife, such as hedges for windbreaks/shelter or using red clover leys to fatten lambs while also offering flowers that are good for pollinators.
- What were you doing on the hottest Bank Holiday Monday on record? It was my dad's 50th birthday so we all went to the pub for lunch.
- What (sheep related) wedding gift would you give Prince Harry and Meghan Markle and why? A British lamb hamper to show Meghan what she was missing out on in the USA.
June
- What did you learn from the second NSA Next Generation Ambassador session? That Love Lamb Week is 1st-7th September every year. And that ewes don’t need worming as often as I thought they did!
- If a bus of NSA members turned up to view your flock today, what would you take them to see? I'd probably take them to see the species-rich grass on our steep banksides, which are full of really interesting grasses such as quaking grass. It's also just happens to be the field where the best Texel lambs are!
- The Government is currently exploring animal welfare in transport / live exports, due to pressure from the anti-farming lobby to ban live exports. What would you like to say to Michael Gove and his civil servants on this topic? I rear my animals to the best welfare standards I can and I don't want them to suffer after I sell them. It would be reassuring if the government can create some kind of assurance that animals would be humanely slaughtered after export.
- What is your favourite sheep farming task and your worst task? Favourite task is lambing sheep with dystocia, as it's so satisfying when you save the lives of the ewe and lamb(s). Worst task is dealing with mawked ewes. I hate the amount of damage flies can do to a healthy sheep in such a short amount of time. (But watching the maggots wriggle out and die is satisfying.)
- The average attendance for a FIFA World Cup game is more than 53,000 fans! You’ve got 10 minutes during the half time break for a sheep farming demonstration. What would you show off and why? I’d cook a quick and simple lamb recipe to encourage more people to try eating lamb.
July
- How are you and your flock coping in the drought conditions? I'm not sure what they are finding to eat but they seem to be nibbling away! We are having to feed hay back to them.
- Are you optimistic that we’ll a) get a Brexit deal before our official departure date from the EU, and b) that it’ll be a good deal for UK agriculture? I'm not optimistic we will get a deal before the deadline, as the Government seems to be crumbling under the pressure. Whether it's a good deal for us, we'll just have to see. As we learnt at the last Ambassador session, don't worry about things we can't change, just focus on making our own businesses as resilient as possible. Good or bad deal, we will all be in it together.
- What was the best take home message from your day at NSA Sheep 2018? There is no right or wrong sheep farming system. There were lots and lots of breed stands there and each breed worked well for the people on the stand. It's about choosing the breed and the farming system that works best for you and your farm.
- What summer agricultural shows are you going to / have you gone to? Which is your favourite and why? I will be going to the small local shows (Bilsdale, Farndale and Stokesley). I enjoy the small, community-based shows much more than the big commercial ones like the Great Yorkshire or the Royal Highland.
- Tell us about your sheepdogs. My sheepdog is called Tess. She's my first dog and I trained her myself so it’s still a bit of a learning curve! She does all I need her to do with the sheep (she runs in the direction I point because I got confused with away and come bye) and is also very good at catching rats, which is ideal.
August
- How are you going to feed your stock this winter? Will you have to feed a higher number of concentrates due to the lack of roughage? Will you use fodder crops? We are lucky as we should have plenty of silage, I put fertiliser on this year and we got twice as much silage as last year.
- How have you, or will you be preparing for tupping. How will you flush your ewes with so little grass available? Are your tups in yet? The tups won't go in till November so hopefully we will have some lambs away by then and the grass will have grown enough to flush on.
- What is your favourite lamb dish? Shepherd’s pie with extra gravy on top.
- What do you do on your farm for the environment? Environmental stewardship has helped us to fund a field with a pollinator mix in to help bees. We also have a lot of trees and hedges that provide habitats and food for birds, as well as providing shelter for our sheep.
September
- Now the nights are drawing in and temperatures are dropping, what (if anything!) are you looking forward to this autumn/winter? Not having to worry about flies on the sheep. And YFC starts again.
- How many ewes are you putting / have you put to the tup this autumn? A similar number to last year. We lamb them all at home and we only just managed this spring with the lack of grass at lambing time. It's put me off getting any more this year.
- If you weren’t a sheep farmer what would you be and why? I did think the other day that the current vegan craze means there must be a demand for a chicken farm with free range ‘rescue’ hens from commercial systems. Let the hens live out their whole lives till they die of natural causes and charge a small fortune for vegan-friendly eggs!
- What is your favourite breed of sheep and why? We have Swaledales and Texels and I prefer the Swales. The Texels have cracking good lambs but they just lack the cheeky personality of a Swale. If Texels run out of silage they will stand and shout. If Swales run out of silage they will jump over the fence and steal some off the Texels!
- Never throw away baler twine! What is your best use for this farm essential? Our most common uses are trying gates and hurdles, and temporary fence repairs.
October
- Who is your farming hero? Robert Bakewell, the breeder of the Dishley Leicester, the first sheep breed to have a bigger bum than shoulders. Without his pioneering breeding technique a lot of the breeds we have today would look very different.
- What would be your one, best piece of advice for someone looking to enter the world of sheep farming? No farmer is perfect and even the best farmers have problems. When things go wrong, you're not the only one.
- The Government is looking to replace area-based farm support payments with payments for ‘public goods’. As a sheep farmer, which public good to you think you deliver the most on, how and why? And why is this important to the tax payer? Our whole farm is managed as permanent pasture, which acts as a fantastic carbon sink by trapping carbon in the form of organic matter. The organic matter also improves soil structure and can lead to less losses of nutrients by leaching and increased water retention of the soil. This can benefit water quality and help reduce flood risk.
- The previous NSA Ambassador session visited British Wool, a timely visit as ‘Wool Week’ falls in October. What surprised or encouraged you about this visit? I was surprised at how hard everyone works to get our raw wool graded, cleaned and combed so it can be used. Seeing them really justified in my mind the vast difference in price between what we get paid and what you have to pay in shops for wool.
- If sheep were not your passion, what other farming enterprise would appeal to you the most? Probably dairy, since I already milk other people's cows.
Final round of questions
- Of the farms you’ve visited during your year as an Ambassador, which would you like to live and work on and why – or, which farmer you have met would you like to work with and why? I liked Kevin Harrison’s farm the best. The attention to detail with nutrition and health was amazing and I think you would learn a lot working there.
- What useful piece of advice have you taken away and implemented on your farm since becoming an NSA Next Generation Ambassador? Are you seeing any benefits from this already? We have started doing our own FECs. Although I haven’t done any worming differently yet, I feel more in control of the worm burden and more confident in my worming strategies.
- What useful piece of advice have you taken away and plan to implement in the next year or two. I am hoping to make better use of EID and record sheep better.
- Select an ambassador from team 2018! Where do you see them in 10 years’ time? I can see Olly running an extremely successful business, because he has a great passion and drive to succeed.
- 2019 is just around the corner. Will you be making any new year’s resolutions for yourself personally or for your farm / place of work in 2019? Eat more lamb!
- Brexit has been the top topic during your first year as an Ambassador. Where do you think the final negotiations will end up and will it be good for UK sheep farmers? I have no idea if Brexit will even happen or if it will be good or bad. I think Brexit gives us a good opportunity to develop a new stewardship scheme, but hopefully we will still be able to trade with the EU.
The whirlwind of positivity Catherine bought to her NSA Ambassador interview is indicative of her approach to everything in life. She went into partnership with her grandparents two years ago, already updating husbandry practices on the farm, based near Thirsk, and doubling sheep numbers by adding 100 Swaledales to the existing 100 Texels. She says: “I’ve invested in different breeds so we can produce prime lambs and Mule gimmers to access two different markets and be less exposed to changes in prices. I am also trying to improve the quality of my stock all the time, so our sheep will stand out even if markets are flooded.” Catherine’s plans include more sustainable use of wormers and antibiotics and more performance recording – as well as continuing to increase numbers so she can reduce the amount of time she spends shepherding for other people. One to watch: Keen to educate the public and add value to an existing diversification project, Catherine plans to offer farm tours to people who stay at the farm’s holiday cottage.
Catherine completed NSA Q&As throughout 2018
March
- What was the biggest surprise for you attending the first NSA Next Generation Ambassador session? How well everyone got on. I was quite nervous because I'm not very good at talking to new people, but after the session I felt like I'd known them all for ages!
- What will be your favourite thing about the clock’s changing on 25th March? Lighter evenings.
- If you were Prime Minister for a day, what single thing sheep-related thing would you change, and what single non-sheep thing would you change? Sheep related – I’d ban non-stun slaughter. Non-sheep related - I’m not sure, but I'd definitely get a selfie with the queen!
- If you could swap your farm (or the farm you work on) for the farm of one of the other NSA Next Generation Ambassador’s this year, which one would you chose and why? Right now, I would probably pick Kirree Kermode’s farm on the Isle of Man, because she somehow managed to avoid pretty much all the snow from the Beast and Storm Emma!
April
- What was the highlight of lambing this year? That one day when the sun came out!
- How are you getting on with meeting the targets you’ve set yourself as an NSA Next Generation Ambassador? Not too bad. I said I'd aim for no more than 10 pet lambs and so far I only have 2 and have my fingers crossed I can get them mothered on.
- If you could give the general public one fact about sheep farming, what would it be and why? That wool is the most sustainable fibre and a great carbon store , so we should utilise this great resource more that we do.
- The tough spring conditions have caused high lambing losses and stunted grass growth for most places. If a genie offered you more grass growth, more live lambs on the ground or one other wish, which would you chose and why? I'd rather have more grass than more lambs because there's no point having more lambs if there's nowt for them to eat.
- If you were asked to step in at the last minute and compete at the Commonwealth Games, what would be your best discipline and why? I'd probably skip the athletic bit and help out in crowd control, as it can't be any more difficult than trying to get through a mob of hungry ewes with a bag.
May
- What’s keeping you busy at the moment, and what job do you really need to get done but can’t find the time for? I've just finished giving the lambs their first clostridial/pasteurella vaccine, cocci drench and white wormer for nematodirus. Now I'm on overseeding our pollinator lay with more red clover to meet the stewardship scheme specifications. I have a list of indoor jobs but they'll have to wait till it's less sunny!
- How is your 2018 lamb crop performing so far? They've really grown the last week or so (since the sun came out!)
- Defra has just closed its ‘Health and Harmony’ consultation on post-Brexit agricultural regulation. Environment, health and welfare were given higher priority in the paper than food production. What are your thoughts on this? I don't think most farmers will actually have to change what they do that much when the new scheme comes out. What will have to change is our mindset. We’ll have to think outside the box and be vocal about how what we do is good for the environment and animal welfare. Many things can benefit both sheep farming and wildlife, such as hedges for windbreaks/shelter or using red clover leys to fatten lambs while also offering flowers that are good for pollinators.
- What were you doing on the hottest Bank Holiday Monday on record? It was my dad's 50th birthday so we all went to the pub for lunch.
- What (sheep related) wedding gift would you give Prince Harry and Meghan Markle and why? A British lamb hamper to show Meghan what she was missing out on in the USA.
June
- What did you learn from the second NSA Next Generation Ambassador session? That Love Lamb Week is 1st-7th September every year. And that ewes don’t need worming as often as I thought they did!
- If a bus of NSA members turned up to view your flock today, what would you take them to see? I'd probably take them to see the species-rich grass on our steep banksides, which are full of really interesting grasses such as quaking grass. It's also just happens to be the field where the best Texel lambs are!
- The Government is currently exploring animal welfare in transport / live exports, due to pressure from the anti-farming lobby to ban live exports. What would you like to say to Michael Gove and his civil servants on this topic? I rear my animals to the best welfare standards I can and I don't want them to suffer after I sell them. It would be reassuring if the government can create some kind of assurance that animals would be humanely slaughtered after export.
- What is your favourite sheep farming task and your worst task? Favourite task is lambing sheep with dystocia, as it's so satisfying when you save the lives of the ewe and lamb(s). Worst task is dealing with mawked ewes. I hate the amount of damage flies can do to a healthy sheep in such a short amount of time. (But watching the maggots wriggle out and die is satisfying.)
- The average attendance for a FIFA World Cup game is more than 53,000 fans! You’ve got 10 minutes during the half time break for a sheep farming demonstration. What would you show off and why? I’d cook a quick and simple lamb recipe to encourage more people to try eating lamb.
July
- How are you and your flock coping in the drought conditions? I'm not sure what they are finding to eat but they seem to be nibbling away! We are having to feed hay back to them.
- Are you optimistic that we’ll a) get a Brexit deal before our official departure date from the EU, and b) that it’ll be a good deal for UK agriculture? I'm not optimistic we will get a deal before the deadline, as the Government seems to be crumbling under the pressure. Whether it's a good deal for us, we'll just have to see. As we learnt at the last Ambassador session, don't worry about things we can't change, just focus on making our own businesses as resilient as possible. Good or bad deal, we will all be in it together.
- What was the best take home message from your day at NSA Sheep 2018? There is no right or wrong sheep farming system. There were lots and lots of breed stands there and each breed worked well for the people on the stand. It's about choosing the breed and the farming system that works best for you and your farm.
- What summer agricultural shows are you going to / have you gone to? Which is your favourite and why? I will be going to the small local shows (Bilsdale, Farndale and Stokesley). I enjoy the small, community-based shows much more than the big commercial ones like the Great Yorkshire or the Royal Highland.
- Tell us about your sheepdogs. My sheepdog is called Tess. She's my first dog and I trained her myself so it’s still a bit of a learning curve! She does all I need her to do with the sheep (she runs in the direction I point because I got confused with away and come bye) and is also very good at catching rats, which is ideal.
August
- How are you going to feed your stock this winter? Will you have to feed a higher number of concentrates due to the lack of roughage? Will you use fodder crops? We are lucky as we should have plenty of silage, I put fertiliser on this year and we got twice as much silage as last year.
- How have you, or will you be preparing for tupping. How will you flush your ewes with so little grass available? Are your tups in yet? The tups won't go in till November so hopefully we will have some lambs away by then and the grass will have grown enough to flush on.
- What is your favourite lamb dish? Shepherd’s pie with extra gravy on top.
- What do you do on your farm for the environment? Environmental stewardship has helped us to fund a field with a pollinator mix in to help bees. We also have a lot of trees and hedges that provide habitats and food for birds, as well as providing shelter for our sheep.
September
- Now the nights are drawing in and temperatures are dropping, what (if anything!) are you looking forward to this autumn/winter? Not having to worry about flies on the sheep. And YFC starts again.
- How many ewes are you putting / have you put to the tup this autumn? A similar number to last year. We lamb them all at home and we only just managed this spring with the lack of grass at lambing time. It's put me off getting any more this year.
- If you weren’t a sheep farmer what would you be and why? I did think the other day that the current vegan craze means there must be a demand for a chicken farm with free range ‘rescue’ hens from commercial systems. Let the hens live out their whole lives till they die of natural causes and charge a small fortune for vegan-friendly eggs!
- What is your favourite breed of sheep and why? We have Swaledales and Texels and I prefer the Swales. The Texels have cracking good lambs but they just lack the cheeky personality of a Swale. If Texels run out of silage they will stand and shout. If Swales run out of silage they will jump over the fence and steal some off the Texels!
- Never throw away baler twine! What is your best use for this farm essential? Our most common uses are trying gates and hurdles, and temporary fence repairs.
October
- Who is your farming hero? Robert Bakewell, the breeder of the Dishley Leicester, the first sheep breed to have a bigger bum than shoulders. Without his pioneering breeding technique a lot of the breeds we have today would look very different.
- What would be your one, best piece of advice for someone looking to enter the world of sheep farming? No farmer is perfect and even the best farmers have problems. When things go wrong, you're not the only one.
- The Government is looking to replace area-based farm support payments with payments for ‘public goods’. As a sheep farmer, which public good to you think you deliver the most on, how and why? And why is this important to the tax payer? Our whole farm is managed as permanent pasture, which acts as a fantastic carbon sink by trapping carbon in the form of organic matter. The organic matter also improves soil structure and can lead to less losses of nutrients by leaching and increased water retention of the soil. This can benefit water quality and help reduce flood risk.
- The previous NSA Ambassador session visited British Wool, a timely visit as ‘Wool Week’ falls in October. What surprised or encouraged you about this visit? I was surprised at how hard everyone works to get our raw wool graded, cleaned and combed so it can be used. Seeing them really justified in my mind the vast difference in price between what we get paid and what you have to pay in shops for wool.
- If sheep were not your passion, what other farming enterprise would appeal to you the most? Probably dairy, since I already milk other people's cows.
Final round of questions
- Of the farms you’ve visited during your year as an Ambassador, which would you like to live and work on and why – or, which farmer you have met would you like to work with and why? I liked Kevin Harrison’s farm the best. The attention to detail with nutrition and health was amazing and I think you would learn a lot working there.
- What useful piece of advice have you taken away and implemented on your farm since becoming an NSA Next Generation Ambassador? Are you seeing any benefits from this already? We have started doing our own FECs. Although I haven’t done any worming differently yet, I feel more in control of the worm burden and more confident in my worming strategies.
- What useful piece of advice have you taken away and plan to implement in the next year or two. I am hoping to make better use of EID and record sheep better.
- Select an ambassador from team 2018! Where do you see them in 10 years’ time? I can see Olly running an extremely successful business, because he has a great passion and drive to succeed.
- 2019 is just around the corner. Will you be making any new year’s resolutions for yourself personally or for your farm / place of work in 2019? Eat more lamb!
- Brexit has been the top topic during your first year as an Ambassador. Where do you think the final negotiations will end up and will it be good for UK sheep farmers? I have no idea if Brexit will even happen or if it will be good or bad. I think Brexit gives us a good opportunity to develop a new stewardship scheme, but hopefully we will still be able to trade with the EU.
