The NSA Sheep Farmers’ Conference will return this year on Tuesday 18th November 2025 taking place at The Great Yorkshire Showground, Harrogate, North Yorkshire.
With the theme of ‘Strive and Thrive: Building profit and resilience in sheep farming’, the NSA Sheep Farmers’ Conference 2025 will be a packed day delivering advice on how to future proof your business, with expert-led discussions and plenty of networking opportunities, alongside interactive workshops.
NSA is particularly pleased to welcome Baroness Minette Batters to the conference this year who will lead the afternoon seminar - Profitability in practice: What could the Farm Profitability Review tell us about the future of sheep farming in the UK?
The conference will be spread between two rooms – the main conference hall where sessions involving industry-leading speakers and opportunities to interact on key topics will take place, and a break-out room where delegates are encouraged to visit trade stands, participate in informal workshops and network with colleagues and speakers. Two workshop booths will be located within the trade stand space, where delegates can don headphones to engage with a variety of topics on offer.
Why attend?
- Hear from top industry leaders and experts
- Network with fellow farmers, suppliers & policymakers
- Explore the future of sustainable sheep farming
- Gain practical insights to boost your business
Spaces are limited — secure your place today!
Timetable for the day
9.30 – 10.30am:
Event Opens: Trade stands open including interactive workshops offering practical and networking opportunities (2 x 20 min workshops)
10.30am: Opening address with NSA Chief Executive Phil Stocker
10.40am - 12 noon:
Seminar 1: Roots to Resilience: Farming for the Future - Profit, Planet & People.
Join AHDB for this interactive panel discussion, where we will hear from three sheep farmers discussing how attending the AHDB Roots to Resilience course has helped them drive their businesses forward. From setting business goals, to finding the dead wood and prioritising the £100/hr jobs, join us for this open and honest conversation about future proofing your sheep business.
Panellists
Emily Grant: Emily is an independent consultant and facilitator based in Perthshire. Her business, Forrit, specialises in helping sheep and beef producers develop resilient pasture-based farm businesses. She is also a sheep farmer, growing on breeding rams for Innovis.
Matt Jordan: Matt Jordon farms sheep and beef cattle alongside his father near Alnwick, Northumberland. He returned to the family farm two and a half years ago after completing his PhD on sustainable livestock systems looking at how farming practices affect soil carbon. He is also Chief Scientific Officer at Regenerate Outcomes, which supports farmers to improve soil health and generate verified soil carbon credits.
Rich Oglesby: Rich Oglesby farms in partnership with his wife Jen at Coltpark Farm near Rothbury, Northumberland. They farm on a Contract Farming Agreement with Michael and Samantha Orde, the farm runs 1730 ewes plus 350 ewe lambs, 100 Angus suckler cows and 100 Red deer Hinds alongside two Countryside Stewardship Schemes and a Sustainable Farming Incentive Scheme. All enterprises are run on an extensive low-cost system, lambing ewes outside and outwintering all cows.
12 noon – 1.45pm:
Lunch Session: A dynamic working lunch featuring innovative workshops, industry trade stands and networking opportunities (6 x 20 min optional workshops are available to join)
A delicious, free, hot / cold buffet lunch will be available throughout this time.
1.45 - 3.15pm
Seminar 2: Profitability in practice: What could the Farm Profitability Review tell us about the future of sheep farming in the UK?
Join NSA, Baroness Minette Batters and a panel of UK sheep farmers for frank discussion about what the Farm Profitability Review - due in November - could indicate for the future of farming in the UK. The session promises to deliver frank discussion, diverse perspectives and grounded, practical insights.
Panellists:
Baroness Minette Batters: Minette is a tenant farmer near Salisbury, Wiltshire. She began farming in 1998 having sold her house and negotiated the farm business tenancy, starting with 15 beef cows but fulfilling a lifetime ambition to farm. Today, the farm has a spring and autumn calving Aberdeen Angus beef herd, arable crops and sheep. The business is widely diversified, with a wedding and events venue in a 17th century tithe barn, holiday cottages and winter grazing for polo ponies, alongside a recently restored walled garden growing native British flowers.
Kate Drury: Kate is a sheep farmer and founder of Sustainable Rope Ltd. Kate was the winner of the Wool Innovation Award 2022 and the Innovate UK Women in Innovation Awards 2023 amongst other notable achievements. Kate has a background in both agriculture and business and is passionate about wool, food quality and the environment.
Grace Kempthorne: Grace is a Senior Research Officer for the Farm Business Survey, and her day-to-day involves collecting farm accounts alongside physical stocking & cropping information and turning it into a set of management accounts, down to gross margin levels, for a range of farms across the South West, providing the farmers with a report back outlining how and why their profits have changed year-on-year and providing benchmarking information against similar farm types in the region. The Farm Business Survey is funded by Defra and independently conducted by Promar, feeding into statistics and policy making. Grace comes from a dairy farm in North Cornwall, milking 450 cows all-year-round and selling 250 beef stirks per year, which she continues to work on now.
3.15 – 3.45pm
Refreshments, trade stands and networking.
3.45pm
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