National Memorial Arboretum campaign for Land Girls monument

Women in the Land Army serving in Essex in WWII

A fundraising campaign has started for a memorial to the women who served in the Land Army during World War II.

The Women's Food and Farming Union (WFU) said it hoped to raise £100,000 for a bronze sculpture at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire.

Julie Scott, from the WFU, said: "They fed Britain throughout the war and they deserve the tribute of a permanent memorial to acknowledge this."

The sculpture would be based on a wartime recruitment poster.

It will also commemorate the work of the Women's Timber Corp, known as "Lumber Jills".

The WFU said that by 1943, 80,000 women were serving in the Land Army, producing 70% of Britain's food.

The Women's Land Army was first formed in 1917. Women were trained in agricultural skills and posted to work on farms across the UK.

The fundraising campaign is being co-ordinated by the local Staffordshire branch of the WFU.