Twenty thousand surviving “Land Girls”, the women who toiled on the Home Front to provide food and timber for Britain in the Second World War, are to be honoured officially for the first time.

After a long campaign by the Women’s Land Army and Women’s Timber Corps, the Government announced yesterday that their wartime efforts would be recognised with the presentation of a special badge commemorating their service that can be worn on Remembrance Sunday and at other ceremonies.

At their peak in 1943, the Land Girls numbered about 80,000, and the Timber Corps, whose members were known as “Lumber Jills”, about 4,000.

Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, who made the announcement, said that the women “worked tirelessly for the benefit of their nation” and deserved to be recognised.

Wearing a uniform that included green jumpers and ties, brown breeches and brown felt hats, the Land Girls dug ditches, ploughed fields, milked cows, sowed seeds and harvested crops, supplying the nation with food while the men were away on war duty.

Lumber Jills provided wood for the war effort by felling trees, sawing timber and sharpening saws.

The first group of veterans will receive their badges at a ceremony to be held next year. A former Land Girl now living in Australia has already said that she would like to attend.

The commemorative badge will not be given to the relatives of deceased Land Girls, except for those who died after December 6 this year.

Hilda Gibson, a former Land Girl, now 82, who wrote a poem about the wartime exploits, said: “To serve one’s country in its greatest hour of need, in whatever capacity, for me, remains memorable.”

In her poem, No Medals Will be Won, she wrote: “Oh to be a Land Girl back in you know when; The cows inside the cowshed and the pigs within the pen; Bad tempered roosters crowing hens laying germ-free eggs; Pecks and scratches here and there and flea bites on our legs.”

Reacting to the Government’s decision, 62 years after the end of the Second World War, Ms Gibson said: “It is a shame that so many women won’t get the badge. I suppose it should have been done earlier, but it wasn’t, and there is no point bemoaning that fact once somebody has decided to do it.” Recalling her time as a Land Girl, she said she had volunteered to take part in pest control and used to collect dead rats from her traps, eight at a time, carrying them by their tails. “There was no sloping off for 24 hours’ leave, you were vital to what you were doing,” she said.

Former Land Girls applying for the badge will have to prove eligibility.

Ms Gibson said: “To receive an award honouring the wartime work of the Women’s Land Army is a powerful and touching recognition.”

Mr Benn said: “Supplying the nation with food and timber during the dark days of war was no easy task.”

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