I earn £300 a month — this is the reality beyond Clarkson’s Farm

‘I earn £300 per month, that’s what I need to feed myself,’ Caitlin Hancock tells me from her farm in south east Cornwall.

But the 30-year-old’s measly £3,600 yearly salary hasn’t dampened her spirits. This is simply what her dream job as a female dairy farmer pays, with every other penny going straight back into her 130 Holstien Freisian and Norwegian Red Cross cows.

‘It’s a very small profit you make in farming,’ she tells Metro. ‘You have to keep putting money back into your farm, or it won’t have a future. Luckily the rent I pay for the farm includes my house, electric bill and council tax.’

This bleak reality was exposed by Jeremy Clarkson on his hit show Clarkson’s Farm, where he made just £144 in profit for an entire year of farming in season one.

Now on season four, Jeremy shows us that being a farmhand isn’t just for lads, introducing his new female farmhand Harriet Cowan. At just 24, the nurse and part-time farmer is tasked with getting the farm back on track in Caleb’s absence.

For female farmers like Caitlin, it’s a breath of fresh air, given that women make up just 16% of farmers in England. ‘It shows young girls there are plenty of women out there doing the job just as well as men,’ she says.

‘Don’t be afraid to get into farming just because you’re a woman. I actually think women are better at some of the jobs than men, like having patience when feeding newborn calves and a more gentle approach.’

Make no mistake, Caitlin isn’t a soft touch. She’s been farming since she was five, feeding calves and raking grass on her grandparent’s dairy farm.

As soon as her feet could touch the pedals, she hopped in a tractor and never looked back.

‘I would feed cows with a 150 horsepower tractor and tow a feed wagon or trailers, as well as mowing grass with some pretty big tractors too,’ she explains. ‘It’s not Clarkson’s Lamborghini, but me being a woman doesn’t mean I can’t drive a big tractor.’

Farming shouldn’t be a man’s world…

Despite being taught all she knows by her parents, Caitlin was met with resistance when she wanted to work on the family farm, with her parents instead giving it to her two brothers a decade ago.

‘My grandparents and my dad were very anti-me being a farmer, I was encouraged to do something else,’ she says. ‘They said the farm couldn’t support me and my brothers.’

Feeling rejected Caitlin went to study agriculture at college where she was one of only four girls, and then left to work on farms in New Zealand and Australia. When she returned 10 years ago, her family still weren’t keen on her farming.

‘It was very frustrating having to convince my family I’m capable of doing it – they took more convincing than anyone,’ Caitlin sighs. ‘But they realised I was still going to end up farming, just for someone else, so now they’re onside.’

During her time in Australia she also experienced some sexism while farming. ‘When I became a herd manager I was in charge of four people, including two guys in their fifties who made it clear they weren’t happy taking instruction from a woman,’ she says.

‘They’d say sexist things and pass it off as banter but if you’re the sort of person who is easily offended, farming probably isn’t for you.’

Finally Caitlin overcame this prejudice in March last year, when her mother acquired New Hartwell Farm as an extension of their business, giving it to Caitlin to run on her own.

Life on Caitlin’s farm…

Just like Jeremy had a favourite cow, Pepper, on his farm, Caitlin has her own favourite, Bessie.

‘She’s such a character,’ she laughs. ‘If you’re out in the field she’ll always come and say hello, she loves attention and even gets jealous if you give another cow some love. She’s a bit of a boss.’

Aside from her animals, as a dairy farmer, Caitlin loves milking the cows and adores calving season.

‘I look forward to August and September when there’s lots of new calves around – it’s so exciting,’ she says. ‘But I wouldn’t say there’s any job I don’t like doing.’

For any woman considering getting into the trade, the farmer says you need to be prepared to graft, but that there is a farming sisterhood emerging.

The nationwide Women in Dairy group allows women in the field to get together and socialise, as well farming open days and opportunities to learn from one another.

And when Caitlin returned to her college years after studying there, the course she took was now an even split of men and women, showing that more girls are getting into farming.

Tuning in to Diddly Squat

Like many of us, Caitlin will be settling in to watch Jeremy’s new season of Clarkson’s Farm this evening because she thinks it’s ‘brilliant’.