With a nursing degree and hot pink nails, the 25-year-old is not a stereotypical farmer – but the breakout TV star is at home on her tractor
Harriet Cowan, photographed on her farm in Derbyshire, is releasing a new book, Life on the Farm: Resilience, family and the realities of a farming life
“There’s just nothing anywhere,” Harriet Cowan says, standing at the highest point of her family farm in Belper, Derbyshire, and scanning across its 100 acres.
It’s August, amid the fourth of the summer’s heatwaves, and spread before us is a patchwork of ochres, khakis and dull browns. Every field is a rash of dusty stubble; every hedgerow is thirstily clinging on; every scrap of grass is gasping. As they watch from a dry-stone wall, even the sparrows look enervated. It has been a long, long summer.
“We finished harvesting in July, over a month ahead of schedule. Barley, winter wheat… There was nothing much to come up. But it’s the same all round the country,” Cowan says straightforwardly. (She says everything straightforwardly.) “It’s scary. But I do think this is just a spell. It was really wet a couple of winters ago, and everyone said, ‘Well, that’s it.’” She shrugs. “I don’t know. I think it’ll pee it down for the rest of the summer now.” With that, she turns on her heel and sets off towards a stile.
Though she’s just 25, Cowan has reason to be more relaxed than many in her position. Over the last few years, she has already achieved the farmer’s ultimate goal: diversification without selling out. All she had to do was gaffer-tape a camera to the inside of her tractor cab, be entirely herself, post the clips on social media, and wait for her audience to find her.
“There’s just nothing anywhere,” Harriet Cowan says, standing at the highest point of her family farm in Belper, Derbyshire, and scanning across its 100 acres.
It’s August, amid the fourth of the summer’s heatwaves, and spread before us is a patchwork of ochres, khakis and dull browns. Every field is a rash of dusty stubble; every hedgerow is thirstily clinging on; every scrap of grass is gasping. As they watch from a dry-stone wall, even the sparrows look enervated. It has been a long, long summer.
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“We finished harvesting in July, over a month ahead of schedule. Barley, winter wheat… There was nothing much to come up. But it’s the same all round the country,” Cowan says straightforwardly. (She says everything straightforwardly.) “It’s scary. But I do think this is just a spell. It was really wet a couple of winters ago, and everyone said, ‘Well, that’s it.’” She shrugs. “I don’t know. I think it’ll pee it down for the rest of the summer now.” With that, she turns on her heel and sets off towards a stile.
Though she’s just 25, Cowan has reason to be more relaxed than many in her position. Over the last few years, she has already achieved the farmer’s ultimate goal: diversification without selling out. All she had to do was gaffer-tape a camera to the inside of her tractor cab, be entirely herself, post the clips on social media, and wait for her audience to find her.
At first, Cowan was an NHS community nurse who farmed in the early mornings, late evenings and weekends to help out her father, Eddy. (“Kinda chic to have absolutely no work-life balance,” read one recent Instagram post.) The formula turned into a surprising cash crop, and yield was instantly high, with a TikTok following that quickly reached the tens of thousands. And among them, as she discovered one day in 2024, were the makers of Clarkson’s Farm.
At that point, producers on Amazon Prime’s bucolic behemoth needed help. Kaleb Cooper, Jeremy Clarkson’s perma-exasperated right-hand man, was heading out on tour. Producers sought his replacement, another stubborn young blonde who could farm anywhere, drive anything and eye-roll to a world-class level. After tracking Cowan online for a while, they initiated contact via a direct message on Instagram. Cowan had barely heard of Clarkson, but she was game.
“There’s just nothing anywhere,” Harriet Cowan says, standing at the highest point of her family farm in Belper, Derbyshire, and scanning across its 100 acres.
It’s August, amid the fourth of the summer’s heatwaves, and spread before us is a patchwork of ochres, khakis and dull browns. Every field is a rash of dusty stubble; every hedgerow is thirstily clinging on; every scrap of grass is gasping. As they watch from a dry-stone wall, even the sparrows look enervated. It has been a long, long summer.
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“We finished harvesting in July, over a month ahead of schedule. Barley, winter wheat… There was nothing much to come up. But it’s the same all round the country,” Cowan says straightforwardly. (She says everything straightforwardly.) “It’s scary. But I do think this is just a spell. It was really wet a couple of winters ago, and everyone said, ‘Well, that’s it.’” She shrugs. “I don’t know. I think it’ll pee it down for the rest of the summer now.” With that, she turns on her heel and sets off towards a stile.
Though she’s just 25, Cowan has reason to be more relaxed than many in her position. Over the last few years, she has already achieved the farmer’s ultimate goal: diversification without selling out. All she had to do was gaffer-tape a camera to the inside of her tractor cab, be entirely herself, post the clips on social media, and wait for her audience to find her.
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At first, Cowan was an NHS community nurse who farmed in the early mornings, late evenings and weekends to help out her father, Eddy. (“Kinda chic to have absolutely no work-life balance,” read one recent Instagram post.) The formula turned into a surprising cash crop, and yield was instantly high, with a TikTok following that quickly reached the tens of thousands. And among them, as she discovered one day in 2024, were the makers of Clarkson’s Farm.
At that point, producers on Amazon Prime’s bucolic behemoth needed help. Kaleb Cooper, Jeremy Clarkson’s perma-exasperated right-hand man, was heading out on tour. Producers sought his replacement, another stubborn young blonde who could farm anywhere, drive anything and eye-roll to a world-class level. After tracking Cowan online for a while, they initiated contact via a direct message on Instagram. Cowan had barely heard of Clarkson, but she was game.
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She subsequently became the breakout star of 2025’s fourth series. Her dynamic with Clarkson, who has a daughter the same age as her, was yet more perfect television, and further proof that he and his producers have an extraordinary knack for finding ideal foils for the former Top Gear host.
For instance: at the same time as building a genuine friendship with Clarkson, Cowan has mocked his tractor-driving skills, complained about his grooming standards and tutted at his work ethic. If Clarkson thought he was getting an easier ride, or that his farm might suffer, without Cooper on site, he was soon put right. And Cooper, when he eventually returned, clearly felt he had competition. (More on that later.) As for the fan following: Cowan’s TikTok audience is now closer to a million.
“I hear you’re keen for a walk,” she says, as I sweatily wander into the family farm’s yard. It’s mid-morning, mid-week, and there’s work to do, but Cowan obliges me with a tour. The 50 acres (another 50 are rented) high above the Derwent Valley were purchased decades ago by her grandparents. Her grandfather has since died, Cowan says, “but my nan’s just over there”. Watching from the porch of the farmhouse, an elderly lady waves. “She’s 93.”
“There’s just nothing anywhere,” Harriet Cowan says, standing at the highest point of her family farm in Belper, Derbyshire, and scanning across its 100 acres.
It’s August, amid the fourth of the summer’s heatwaves, and spread before us is a patchwork of ochres, khakis and dull browns. Every field is a rash of dusty stubble; every hedgerow is thirstily clinging on; every scrap of grass is gasping. As they watch from a dry-stone wall, even the sparrows look enervated. It has been a long, long summer.
“We finished harvesting in July, over a month ahead of schedule. Barley, winter wheat… There was nothing much to come up. But it’s the same all round the country,” Cowan says straightforwardly. (She says everything straightforwardly.) “It’s scary. But I do think this is just a spell. It was really wet a couple of winters ago, and everyone said, ‘Well, that’s it.’” She shrugs. “I don’t know. I think it’ll pee it down for the rest of the summer now.” With that, she turns on her heel and sets off towards a stile.
Though she’s just 25, Cowan has reason to be more relaxed than many in her position. Over the last few years, she has already achieved the farmer’s ultimate goal: diversification without selling out. All she had to do was gaffer-tape a camera to the inside of her tractor cab, be entirely herself, post the clips on social media, and wait for her audience to find her.
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At first, Cowan was an NHS community nurse who farmed in the early mornings, late evenings and weekends to help out her father, Eddy. (“Kinda chic to have absolutely no work-life balance,” read one recent Instagram post.) The formula turned into a surprising cash crop, and yield was instantly high, with a TikTok following that quickly reached the tens of thousands. And among them, as she discovered one day in 2024, were the makers of Clarkson’s Farm.
At that point, producers on Amazon Prime’s bucolic behemoth needed help. Kaleb Cooper, Jeremy Clarkson’s perma-exasperated right-hand man, was heading out on tour. Producers sought his replacement, another stubborn young blonde who could farm anywhere, drive anything and eye-roll to a world-class level. After tracking Cowan online for a while, they initiated contact via a direct message on Instagram. Cowan had barely heard of Clarkson, but she was game.
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She subsequently became the breakout star of 2025’s fourth series. Her dynamic with Clarkson, who has a daughter the same age as her, was yet more perfect television, and further proof that he and his producers have an extraordinary knack for finding ideal foils for the former Top Gear host.
For instance: at the same time as building a genuine friendship with Clarkson, Cowan has mocked his tractor-driving skills, complained about his grooming standards and tutted at his work ethic. If Clarkson thought he was getting an easier ride, or that his farm might suffer, without Cooper on site, he was soon put right. And Cooper, when he eventually returned, clearly felt he had competition. (More on that later.) As for the fan following: Cowan’s TikTok audience is now closer to a million
“I hear you’re keen for a walk,” she says, as I sweatily wander into the family farm’s yard. It’s mid-morning, mid-week, and there’s work to do, but Cowan obliges me with a tour. The 50 acres (another 50 are rented) high above the Derwent Valley were purchased decades ago by her grandparents. Her grandfather has since died, Cowan says, “but my nan’s just over there”. Watching from the porch of the farmhouse, an elderly lady waves. “She’s 93.”
It is devastatingly boring – and obvious – to say so, but Cowan doesn’t look like a stereotypical farmer. Today, having driven in from her home in the next village, she’s in vintage Levi dungarees, a T-shirt bearing the name of Clarkson’s pub, The Farmer’s Dog – “Repping, always. But I did buy it. I promised I’d support him” – and spotless white trainers, which she swaps for a pair of steel-toecap V12 boots.
The look is finished by long, hot-pink nails. They’re… “Aggressive?” she offers, sounding as if that was the intention. “Did you see that I cut the end of my finger off?” She pulls out her phone and scrolls to an utterly gruesome photo of her middle finger rendered an inch shorter by a log-splitting accident earlier this year.
“I didn’t feel it at first, I had so much adrenaline. But I was holding the log and had long nails, so I couldn’t see where my finger ended.” The digit was surgically reattached: she can now swear at full-mast again. Alas, another talon was pulled off by a sheep recently. Neither incident has put her off visiting the manicurist. “I’m a bit of a girly girl, always going out. So I like my nails, I like my lashes, I like doing my hair…” One of the first things she did for Clarkson is trim his bushy eyebrows on camera.
If it wasn’t obvious from watching Clarkson’s Farm, Cowan has no reservations about getting her hands dirty (or altered with a log-splitter). Amazon’s most-watched original series in the UK, attracting more than four million people per episode, is built on authentic graft. When Cowan first started filming, she was surprised by how far away the camera crew stood, so as to keep out of the way and let farmers farm.
Clarkson, Cooper et al were all doing long days, but Cowan has taken the work rate further. After her first series on the show, Clarkson himself called her “a pocket-sized powerhouse”, adding that: “All farmers work hard, but she set new standards. I don’t think I ever saw her sit still.”
Nor is she content to sit still in life. We’ve met to talk about her new book, Life on the Farm, which is part memoir, part diary, part call-to-arms for young people to give farming a chance.
“Quite a few different publishers wanted me to write it. I was like, ‘I’m 25, what do I know? What’s interesting about my life?’ But they said, ‘No, people just want to know about farming.’ Which is crazy, but apparently true.”
As we crunch over a steep field scorched but for the few dandelions, poppies and marigolds with the gumption to break through, she says she’s only just getting used to people being interested in her at all: “If I’m doing a ‘story’ on Instagram, I assume people will skip through it, but people actually sit there and fully take it all in. It’s intense, but such a nice community – 90 per cent of people are so positive.” Naturally, though, among her 1.4 million combined social media followers there’s the odd creep, too. “I must get about a thousand DMs a day and probably 50 per cent are just men being like, ‘I wish I could marry you.’ But it’s all fun and games. The other 50 per cent are young girls seeing me farming and thinking, ‘I’d like to do what she does.’ And they’re who I do it for.”
Becoming an author was never in the long-term plans – “er, no” – but ever since Cowan started driving a tractor at 12 years old, there’s only ever been one goal, which is to buy a farm of her own. “I’ve actually just bought one,” she says, casually. “It’s quite secretive at the minute. I’ve not told many people that yet. But yeah, 100 acres, in Darley Dale, about 20 minutes north of here.”
Her boyfriend, James Booth, is also a farmer; they met at Belper Young Farmers Club when they were teenagers. In November, Cowan plans to leave her father’s land, and move on to her own 100-acre operation, turning it into a cattle-fattening business much like Eddy’s. Where he supplies the local butcher – run, conveniently, by an uncle – she plans to put a butcher’s shop on-site. “I don’t know if that’s where the money is. There isn’t really money anywhere. But it’s what I know. We’ll have Belgian Blues like here. But here we’ve also got Aberdeen Angus, Holstein Friesians… We fatten, get them to 18 months, then off to market.” Her father also has a few sheep to keep the grass down.
Cowan knows every inch of this land. As girls, she and her older sister, Izzy, would sit in their father’s tractor cab and watch him work, absorbing his wisdom. As soon as they were old enough, they’d help out. After Eddy and the girls’ mother, Vicky, divorced, it left even more to do. The sisters rarely missed a day. “I don’t think I’d be standing here if my parents had had a boy. My dad’s favourite saying is, ‘Well, I didn’t have any sons, so I just had to cope with the daughters I did get.’” (Izzy now works on the farm at the nearby Chatsworth Estate.)
Though Cowan was already fixated on farming, her mum insisted on a fallback option, so she took a degree in nursing from the University of Derby; she trained throughout the latter years of Covid while doubling up with farm work. “I did enjoy nursing, but farming was always a passion. When I finished a day of nursing I’d be more excited to go and get on a tractor.”
Though glad to have done her degree, she approves of Andy Burnham’s recent suggestion that Britain’s young people should “value the hard hat as much as the graduation cap”. “Yeah, go and actually learn a skill,” she says. “All these people go to university and come out with a degree and can’t get a job at the end of it anyway, which is crazy.”
As Clarkson has articulated better than almost anybody else, this is not a life for everyone. And it doesn’t help that the Government often makes it even harder. Cowan is wary of getting too far into the rough on that count, but she won’t sugar-coat anything either. “I don’t want to stand here and say I’m not political, because what Labour’s done with the inheritance tax is awful for farmers. That’s why we all went down to protest it. But I also don’t spend much time learning about politics.”
I tell her I would be astonished if a savvy political party didn’t try to rope her in ahead of the next election. “Well, my main focus in life is the farm, and I think when you start getting into [politics], it starts getting nasty. People take views so seriously. It’s like, ‘If you don’t believe in what we believe in, we don’t get on.’ I just think, ‘Oh God…’”
She views mental-health problems in farming, driven by the solitary nature of the work, as a major issue, and tries to raise awareness of it whenever she has the opportunity – including discussing it with Clarkson, another advocate of greater support for lonely farmers, on camera. Social media, she says, helps. “You can meet people, see people, and discover that you’re all going through the same thing. The same drought, the same weather, the same harvest… You’re not alone.”
Cowan could, of course, have waited for the moment to take over the family farm. James has his own, too: another 100-acre operation, a few valleys over. “But you feel like you’re being watched by your dad a bit here, and I know that James’s farm will always be his. I got to the point where I gave up nursing, and wanted to farm full-time.” So you needed a farm. She nods firmly. “So I needed a farm.”
Now she has one, Cowan’s modus operandi – to change the perception of the typical life and look of a farmer – can continue apace. That intention to become a role model was partly why she accepted the Clarkson’s Farm opportunity. “I thought, well, if a young girl sees it and thinks that’s what she’d like to do, she might see me and go, ‘If Harriet can do it, I can as well.’”
After her introduction as Clarkson’s new helper, much was made of Cowan’s “rivalry” with Cooper, who the edit at least suggested might feel he was being replaced. He really was frosty when he came back to the Cotswolds, she says. “I understand why he was p—– off. And I’m not going to lie, he was. But it wasn’t because of me as a person, or me as a woman. It was because he’d been away for so long on a tour bus.
“He’s like me, he’s a homebody. Eight weeks driving around, not with family, or being on a tractor. Then you come home and find out someone else has been doing your job? I’d be p—– off. But me and him are great now. He just needed to get back into farming. The air cleared completely and we’ve worked together loads. We realised we’re both just farmers, and now we’re great friends.”
After only a brief cameo in the last series, she has no set plans to return, but also wouldn’t say no. “It’s just a long way away to drive, and I’ve just bought a farm so… life is busy.”
At the end of the last series, Clarkson announced he’d been having treatment for aggressive prostate cancer, which was now in remission. Cowan confirms he’s well. “Yeah, he’s all right now. He’s happy, he’s farming, he’s back on a tractor.” Is he really as hapless at driving a tractor as it looks? She laughs. “Well, farming’s difficult. I’ve been doing it since I was 12…”
I imagine she has TV offers daily. What does she think of Countryfile? As we walk, Cowan turns and gives me a look. “No comment.” But isn’t it a bit cosy? “Mmm. I think Clarkson’s Farm shows the harsh realities of farming, from farmers’ perspectives, and it’s done so much for farming. I think in the five years it’s been out, it’s done a lot more than Countryfile ever has – and that speaks loads.
“I’ve met the Countryfile presenters. Everyone’s lovely, and I do think they’re there for the countryside, just not necessarily farming. They’re all about species of trees and birds, and obviously we care about that, but we worry more about the actual hardships of farming. They focus on rewilding, for example, and the habitats of birds and insects. And obviously we do too, but at the end of the day [rewilders] are leaving fields to overgrow and letting brambles grow, and ragwort and weeds. In our heads, that’s like wasting the land, because you could be making food from that.”
She scuffs her boot along the ground for punctuation. “We do have different perspectives, but it’s about working together to see how we can benefit each other. But [rewilders] also say, ‘Well, we’re not hurting you’, but they’re letting this ragwort and nasty weeds grow on their land. The seeds then blow into another farmer’s land, and then we have ragwort, which kills the horses and cattle. So actually it does affect us.” I’m glad I asked.
We’ve looped back to the yard and arrived at an empty-looking barn. “Something’s dead in here,” she immediately announces. Hunting around for a moment, she finds a tarpaulin mound in a corner and peels it back. “Yeah. Sheep.” One of a small flock kept primarily as lawnmowers. “Dad must be waiting for it to be collected.” Eddy appears, and confirms this. What did it die of? He shrugs. “Sheep just die. They’re idiots. It’s your job to try to keep them alive.”
Harriet and I keep walking, and return to the point. In Clarkson, the agricultural community does at least have an effective champion with a very loud voice. She laughs in agreement. “I think people were saying Jeremy’s going to be the new prime minister? Somehow I don’t think that’s going to happen.” Well, would she vote for him? “Depends. I don’t know what the vibe would be…”
He may not become PM, but he has at least helped introduce Cowan, a new generation of farmer with a thoroughly common-sense world view. As we reach the end of the walk, finishing in a beautiful orchard behind her grandmother’s house, she returns to the current state of the land. “The crazy thing is that it will bounce back. It will be green again. People think this is the end of the world, but all we need is a bit of rain.”
The future will be fine, if we look after it. On the new farm, Cowan plans to host young people, especially young people from cities, to teach kids “that milk comes from cows, cows make steaks and burgers, pigs make bacon and sausages, and that we shouldn’t get too attached to things.
“At the end of the day, that’s how it’s been for centuries. We eat the food we grow, and that makes us grow. That’s what I want to show kids. That this is real life. This is farming.”
