Instagram often gets criticised for triggering Fomo or self-esteem issues, but staring at images of belted galloway calves in the Yorkshire dales could inspire an unfamiliar calm instead. Around the country, farmers are using the app to connect not only with fellow farmers but also with fans of their animals, the rural lifestyle or simply just the picturesque landscapes they capture.
Neil and Leigh of Hill Top Farm in the Yorkshire dales have more than 16,000 followers as @hilltopfarmgirl, the majority of whom they believe are non-farmers. “I think they follow for a real variety of reasons,” Leigh says. It could be concern for high-welfare meat or a love of animals and the landscape. “Some people love the escape into a different world - a US follower once said he loved looking at the photos when he was at work in his office in a skyscraper in Chicago.”
For 24-year-old Lake District farmer Nathan Atkinson (@njatkinson1, 7,700 followers), sharing life on the farm resulted in a boost in followers. He swapped typical images of nights out for pictures of his animals when he noticed how his new fans were reacting. “People were tagging their friends, writing: ‘Look at this.’ So I kept posting the animal photos. I was getting more and more followers, although my friends now call it Cowstagram or Moostagram.”
Some have found other forms of success through social media. Lake District shepherd James Rebanks turned his tweets at @herdyshepherd1 into a bestselling book, The Shepherd’s Life, published in 2015. At Hill Top Farm, showcasing the landscape and those striking belted galloways has brought more visitors to the farm’s holiday accommodation, and Atkinson has bought and sold produce through the app.
On Instagram, the appeal for a bleary-eyed city dweller is obvious. No commute. Clean air. Working with your hands. And plenty of adorable animals. But the same caveat applies to Moostagram as to all of Instagram: is this merely the idealised version? Not on Atkinson’s page. “I posted a newborn english longhorn calf called Olivia,” he explains. “I felt I had to let my followers know when she had unfortunately died at eight days. This upset a lot of people! I then showed the process of fostering a new bought-in calf: skinning the dead calf and putting her coat on to the new calf, tricking the mother into thinking it is her own calf, is one of the only ways she will accept it. I think my followers appreciate the honesty – it’s not all just cute fluffy animals. Farming can be very difficult at times.”
