Alumnae Spotlight: Sarah Bolt

This week’s Alumnae Spotlight looks at the fascinating career of Sarah Bolt (Black), Class of 1991

Sarah has worked in the agricultural sector for over 25 years, having graduated with a BSc in Agriculture (University of London). Latterly she was heavily involved with engaging farmers to drive change on farms.

Sarah studied for an MSc in Animal Behaviour (University of Exeter) graduating in 2014. Her dissertation looked at the effects of social contact on the health and production of dairy calves. Her work was cited, amongst others, in the decision of a well-known supermarket to ban rearing calves in single pens, instead promoting the benefits of pair or group rearing on health and welfare.

In 2017, Sarah joined Kingshay who are specialists in providing independent and practical support to farmers throughout the UK. She is responsible principally for writing technical publications and dealing with technical queries. More recently, Sarah has started studying Holistic Management and hopes to become an accredited professional in due course to help enable farmers to regenerate their soils. Her role continues to build on her passion for motivating and inspiring change on farms for a profitable, sustainable future.

Sarah describes her proudest achievement as being a co-founder of “Women in Dairy”, designed to bring women working across the industry together to connect, share and inspire, through regional discussion groups for knowledge exchange, networking and promoting the dairy industry. Sarah sits on its steering committee, organising the annual conference (going into its 9th year), training facilitators, and driving the organisation forward.

Sarah is heavily involved in her community group, bringing together a quarterly newsletter and co-leading the eco-group, running events such as bat walks and bird box cleaning. In her spare time, Sarah is most likely to be found in the great outdoors, either gardening or walking the many footpaths of the southwest.

Inspired by farm holidays in Devon and Cornwall as a young child, Sarah told us she was adamant that she wanted a career in agriculture. She studied Geography, Biology & Chemistry at A level at Croydon High, which gave her an excellent all-round grounding for her future studies. Sarah suggests that her A-level Geography project looking at the effect of sheep grazing on chalk grassland was perhaps a little ahead of its time. Ecological surveying is only just making its way into farming practices.

Sarah is another representative of the diversity of passions of a Croydon High alumna!