Jenny Willis has been appointed as NFU County Adviser for Cumbria – a role which means she’ll be the NFU's voice on the ground, feeding back valuable information from its farmer members to its regional and headquarter offices.
Jenny is covering for Helen Forrester while she is on maternity leave and will be based at the NFU’s Penrith office on Cromwell Road on a job share basis. She will work every week from Monday through to Thursday and fellow Cumbria County Adviser Mike Sanderson will work Thursday afternoons and all day on a Friday.
Having started with a few hens in the back garden 20 years ago, Jenny’s farming interests have developed over the years. She and her family live in Kendal, and now have Herdwick, Hebridean and Cotswold sheep which they run on 30 acres nearby at Crook, alongside two fell ponies and a small herd of Golden Guernsey goats.
Jenny has experience of working with rural development projects overseas and more recently has been working on a freelance basis on a number of projects including with the Environment Agency on water management issues and communicating flood risk, with Scottish Power Energy Networks on involving different sectors in developing distribution networks, and with Co-operatives UK to support the development of community renewable energy generation co-ops.
Jenny said: “I’m looking forward to working with Mike Sanderson in Penrith and NFU members throughout Cumbria, and will also be supporting the work of the North West Livestock Board.“
