Meinir crowned the 26th winner of the NFU Cymru/NFU Mutual Wales Woman Farmer of the Year

Meinir Howells, from Pentrecwrt, near Llandysu, scooped the award 12 years after her mother, Doris Jones also collected the honour.

Meinir is a hard-working, hands-on farmer and along with her husband Gary, runs a predominately pedigree flock as well as some commercials, producing around 130 yearling breeding rams a year.

They also have a herd of beef heifers, which they rear, calve and then sell on, a commercial suckler herd and a pedigree Aberdeen Angus herd, as well as 12 Shetland ponies and a pig.

She has been a driving force behind the couple’s successful on-farm sales, holding them at home for the past four years. As part of these sales, they held an NFU Cymru open day and farm tour, a tractor run and a number of concerts, raising money for a number of charities including Breast Cancer Wales, Tir Dewi, Prostate Cancer, Wales Air Ambulance and Diabetes Cymru. Over £50,000 has been raised to date.

In order to meet their climate and environment goals, Meinir and Gary have ensured the farm has double fenced 4,000m of hedges, planted around 11,000 trees in hedgerows, fencing off rough land and leaving it for nature to thrive. They also now have 15 bee hives on the farm and Meinir sells the honey within the local community.

Off farm, Meinir works part time as a TV presenter, mainly focusing on agricultural programmes, where she aims to show the hard work, dedication and passion of farmers from all over Wales. She presents from the Royal Welsh Show for the live S4C coverage and is a regular on S4C’s Ffermio.

The Howell’s family also feature in a programme on S4C called Teulu Shadog: Blwyddyn ar y Fferm (The Shadog Family: A year on the farm). This programme shows the ups and downs and the reality of farming and has just been renewed for a fourth series.

NFU Cymru Deputy President and judge of the award Abi Reader said: “We are delighted to announce Meinir as the winner of the 26th Wales Woman Farmer of the Year Award. Meinir is a strong advocate for safeguarding the future of Welsh agriculture, whether that be through the production of top-quality livestock on the farm, her work off farm as an agricultural TV presenter, or her work with local schools and the YFC. Her passion for the industry was clear to see and she believes that agriculture plays a central role in preserving and enhancing biodiversity and the ecosystems, as well as producing high quality food.

“Meinir clearly has innovative ideas of how to take the farming message to the masses and is a real driving force behind the success of Shadog. After visiting her farm, it was clear she is a very worthy winner of the Wales Woman Farmer of the Year award.”

Meinir was presented with a Welsh crystal engraved bowl and £500 prize money to mark her achievement.