Claire Simonetta now works as a farmer and agricultural consultant on the Isle of Mull, after having gained a First Class Honours degree in Agriculture through SRUC.
“I was born and raised in Switzerland and grew up in the countryside where I developed a love for nature and animals from a young age and where I was surrounded by farming and hence have always had a lot of appreciation of and respect for the important work carried out by farmers.
I am not from a farming family and my dream was to study astrophysics. After finishing secondary school, I started working in Zurich to bring the necessary finances together for a university course, and was eventually promoted to a paralegal.
I had always been very keen on visiting Scotland and by chance the opportunity arose to attend a Highland Cattle conference in 2010. I enjoyed it so much that I spent further holidays in Scotland visiting farmers and 18 months after the conference, I quit my job and started various work experiences across Scotland and Wales on a range of mixed, beef, sheep and dairy farms, with a vet and in a cattle grazing project.
I eventually settled on an extensive hill cattle and sheep farm on the Isle of Mull, where I became more and more involved with various aspects of and improved my knowledge of farming.
I decided that I wanted to become more involved within the general farming industry and increase my understanding of the theoretical/academic aspects of agriculture as well to complement the practical experience that I had collected so far and applied to SRUC to study agriculture.
During my studies, I gained a variety of theoretical and practical qualifications at and outwith college, from the Blue Seal in sheep shearing to a pesticide, trailer and animal transportation license, a triple distinction in the first 3 years of my course and I have just recently graduated with a First Class honours degree in my final year of studying agriculture at the SRUC campus in Ayr."
I still live and work on the hill farm, which is tenanted by my partner Iain MacKay, and which expands over 3,200 hectares of predominantly class 6 and 7 hill ground with approx. 30ha of class 5 in-bye ground. The business runs a closed herd of 55 breeding Highland cows with are bred to the Highland and Whitebred Shorthorn bull and which have Elite Health status. The farm also runs 1,000 breeding ewes, the majority of which are North Country Cheviots with approx. 350 Blackface ewes which are being bred up to a Cheviot with the aim to run pure Cheviots on the whole farm.
A fully recorded in-bye studflock of 120 pedigree Cheviot ewes provide hardy and acclimatised tups from known bloodlines for the hill flock. Market outlets for the cattle and sheep include animals sold for breeding and store mainly with some slow matured finishing stock. All steers and any heifers not suitable for breeding are supplied into Torloisk Highland Ltd, a company that was recently founded by my partner along with 3 other co-founders, to supply prime Highland beef into London.
On the farm, I have become heavily involved with general work as well as managerial and business tasks and decisions, am fully responsible for the finances and carry out analytical business management as well as livestock performance recording, analysis and evaluation to identify the financial performance of different aspects of the business and to highlight weak areas.
In addition to my work on the farm, I am commencing a part-time job as an agricultural consultant and hope to be able to actively contribute towards making a difference within agriculture, be it within Scotland or beyond, and to help create a fairer and more sustainable future for farming through consulting and advising individual farming businesses, industry organisations and institutions or even government, e.g. by helping to outline better legislation.
I chose this career path partly because I love working within farming but also because of the huge importance of agriculture in the context of a growing world population putting more and more pressure on already scarce resources such as land and water whilst impacting on ecosystems and nature as a whole. I am in the lucky position where I was able to grow up not having to struggle for water, food or a home, and I would like to do my bit towards ensuring that the availability of land to feed and accommodate future generations whilst allowing for humans and nature to coexist with each other will not be compromised."