Vis­it­ing a work­ing farm pro­vid­ed a bril­liant oppor­tu­ni­ty for peo­ple to talk direct­ly with the farm­ers that pro­duce their food and learn about what is involved in sus­tain­able food pro­duc­tion, a top­ic that is at the fore­front of many households. 

Her Roy­al High­ness The Duchess of Edin­burgh vis­it­ed Hamp­ton Estate Farms in Sur­rey today (11^th June 2023) to cel­e­brate LEAF Open Farm Sun­day – farming’s annu­al open day. Dur­ing her vis­it The Duchess saw first-hand what farm­ing deliv­ers, from meet­ing the expert bovine vet who cares for the estate’s pedi­gree herd of Sus­sex beef cows, learn­ing about the his­to­ry and process of hop grow­ing, through to see­ing the lat­est John Deere trac­tor and direct drill tech­nol­o­gy and hear­ing about how regen­er­a­tive farm­ing pre­serves and enhances biodiversity. 

The Duchess met some inspi­ra­tional young peo­ple to hear about how they are forg­ing their careers in the sec­tor. She also met the Estate’s butch­er, ​‘Simon the Butch­er’ who cap­tains Team GB in the World Butch­ers’ Chal­lenge, and aquat­ic bio­di­ver­si­ty expert Pete (the Pond) Bir­chall who designed the new­ly cre­at­ed edu­ca­tion­al fresh­wa­ter pond. It was an all-round field to fork expe­ri­ence with The Duchess also enjoy­ing sam­pling wild roe veni­son sausages from Hampton.

Annabel Shack­le­ton, LEAF Open Farm Sun­day man­ag­er said: 

“With the public’s grow­ing inter­est around the envi­ron­ment and sus­tain­abil­i­ty, farming’s annu­al open day is so impor­tant. It offers a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty for farm­ers to build sup­port for the indus­try, show­cas­ing the very best of what they do whilst being ful­ly sup­port­ed with resources, meet­ings, event guid­ance and more. Not only have farm­ers col­lec­tive­ly raised the pro­file of British food and farm­ing, but we have also inspired a new gen­er­a­tion of agri-food professionals. 

“There is still a real lack of under­stand­ing about where our food comes from, and the full impact of all that farm­ers do. By tak­ing part in LEAF Open Farm Sun­day, farm­ers con­tin­ue to help change people’s per­cep­tions and under­stand­ing of the indus­try. We’re call­ing on all farm­ers to think about how they can get involved in next year’s LEAF Open Farm Sun­day on 9^th June and have a real, last­ing pos­i­tive impact in 2024!”

The feed­back has been huge­ly pos­i­tive, from indus­try and vis­i­tors alike. Mrs Shack­le­ton con­grat­u­lat­ed all involved: 

“We’d like to say a big thank you to every­one who made LEAF Open Farm Sun­day 2023 anoth­er huge suc­cess, par­tic­u­lar­ly all the host farm­ers, vol­un­teers and our spon­sors.”

Next year’s LEAF Open Farm Sun­day will take place on Sun­day 9^th June 2024.

For more infor­ma­tion on how farm­ers can be involved, vis­it www​.farm​sun​day​.org. To keep up to date with the LEAF Open Farm Sun­day cam­paign on social media, fol­low @OpenFarmSunday.

Watch LOFS 2023 high­lights video here: 

EDI­TORS NOTES:

• Email: [email protected] Tel: 02476413911, 07912463151

• Man­aged by LEAF (Link­ing Envi­ron­ment And Farm­ing), the farming’s annu­al open day has been a high­light in the farm­ing cal­en­dar since 2006, offer­ing vis­i­tors the oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn about food pro­duc­tion, farm­ing and the envi­ron­ment first hand. LEAF Open Farm Sun­day is spon­sored nation­al­ly by: AHDB, Arla Foods, Asda, BASF, Co-op, Defra, Farm­ers Week­ly, Fron­tier Agri­cul­ture, John Deere, LEAF Mar­que, M&S, NFU, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Wait­rose. All of which play a huge part in encour­ag­ing farm­ers to get involved, pro­mot­ing the event to the pub­lic, as well as sup­port on the day. 

• Keep up to date with all the LEAF Open Farm Sun­day news and join in the online con­ver­sa­tions using #LOFS23:
  • Twit­ter: @OpenFarmSunday
  • Face­book: @ LEAFOpenFarmSunday 
  • Insta­gram: @OpenFarmSunday

• LEAF Open Farm Sun­day is man­aged by LEAF (Link­ing Envi­ron­ment And Farm­ing) – the lead­ing organ­i­sa­tion deliv­er­ing and pro­mot­ing cli­mate pos­i­tive action, thriv­ing, resilient and exem­plar agro-eco­log­i­cal farm­ing at an increas­ing­ly glob­al lev­el. Work­ing with farm­ers, the food indus­try, sci­en­tists, envi­ron­men­tal­ists, teach­ers, young peo­ple and con­sumers we are look­ing at new ways to deliv­er pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and pros­per­i­ty among our farm­ers, enrich the envi­ron­ment and engage young peo­ple and soci­ety in a valu­able and mean­ing­ful way. LEAF set up and has man­aged LEAF Open Farm Sun­day since it began in 2006 (LEAF is a reg­is­tered char­i­ty no: 1045781). 

• LEAF Open Farm Sun­day 2024 will take place on 9^th June 2024. Reg­is­ter to host an event at www​.farm​sun​day​.org