Farmer, model and politician

Farmer Heiða Guðný Ásgeirsdóttir is competing on Iceland’s behalf in World shearing and woolhandling championships in New Zealand. She’s a former model and worked for a while in New York. The life did not suit her. She returned to Iceland and later took over her parent’s farm at the age of 23, which she has been farming alone ever since.

She has also worked as a police officer and had a career in politics, mainly to fight plans to raise a hydroelectric power station. She has strong feelings on nature preservation and refused to sell her land to the power company, as the lake the power station would create, would cover most of her farmland.

Ásgeirsdóttir has attracted quite the attention at the shearing competition in New Zealand. “On one hand she's from Iceland, and on another she's the only female in the World championships machine shearing […] On another, at the age of 38 she's already been farming 15 years, taking over the 6460 hectares and 500 sheep farm Ljotarstadir when she was just 23, as her now late father became unable to farm the property.”

Ásgeirsdóttir is well known in Iceland, after a book about her life was published last autumn and became a best seller. The book is called Heiða – Fjalldalabóndi, referring to the remote location of her farm.