Minette Batters

Minette Bridget Batters (' Hill'''; born May 1967) is a British farmer who was the President of the National Farmers' Union of England and Wales from 2018 until 2024.

Early life
Batters was born in May 1967. She was brought up on a tenant farm near Salisbury and always wanted to be a farmer. She attended Godolphin School, an independent school in Salisbury. As a teenager she worked with horses for David Elsworth, including riding over 30 winners in races. Her father encouraged her to develop a career instead of becoming involved in farming, so she attended catering college and then ran a catering company. In 1998, when her father retired, she took over the farm's tenancy.

Career
Batters is a tenant farmer of a 300-acre mixed farm near Downton in Wiltshire. As well as the farm, she runs a catering business and has diversified into using a renovated barn as a wedding venue. She was a co-founder of the 2010s campaigns Ladies in Beef and the Great British Beef Week.

She joined the NFU when she started farming, and rose to be county chair and a member of several NFU committees. She served as vice-president of the NFU from 2014 to 2018 and was voted president of the organisation in 2018. In 2020 and 2022 she was re-elected to the post for further two-year terms.

In her role as vice-president and then president, Batters has represented the farming community at a time of great change. She agreed a target for the NFU of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040. Leaving the European Union – with its freedom of movement for farm labour, as well as the Single Market and Common Agricultural Policy – has resulted in significant changes to farming. New regulatory and transitional subsidy arrangements in the British Isles affect farming. Batters has supported orderly change and maintenance of high standards in UK agriculture. She worked with Michael Gove while he was secretary of state for the environment. She encourages working with the government on agriculture and trade policies so that the farming community can produce food that is globally competitive, while also improving the environment and mitigating climate change. In 2020 she was part of a campaign to ensure that post-Brexit agricultural trade agreements, such as with the USA, did not allow import of food produced under conditions that would be illegal in the UK.

After her final term as NFU president ended in 2024, she started a new farm enterprise, growing flowers.

Honours and awards
In November 2020 she was included in the BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour Power List 2020. In August 2021 she was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant of Wiltshire.

Peerage
In the 2024 Dissolution Honours, she was nominated for a life peerage as a Crossbencher.

Personal life
She is divorced with two children.