A new sur­vey, car­ried out by LEAF (Link­ing Envi­ron­ment And Farm­ing) ahead of this weekend’s Open Farm Sun­day, revealed that con­sumers want to sup­port British farm­ers, although some may already be doing so with­out even real­is­ing. Although many con­sumers think we should pro­duce more food in Britain, the major­i­ty are unaware how much our farm­ers already grow.

Near­ly half of con­sumers (48%) said they thought British farm­ers should pro­duce more of our own food, but the sur­vey revealed that peo­ple vast­ly under­es­ti­mate how much is already pro­duced in this coun­try. Although we are cur­rent­ly 60% self-suf­fi­cient in the UK, con­sumers on aver­age believed this to be clos­er to 35%. The coun­try of ori­gin (42%) was the third most pop­u­lar pur­chase dri­ver for fresh food choic­es, with price (74%) and spe­cial offers (51%) the only fac­tors prov­ing more influ­en­tial. More than a quar­ter (27%) of those sur­veyed say they buy more British food than they did five years ago, and the same num­ber said they were hap­py to pay more for food pro­duced in Britain. 

The sur­vey also revealed that over a quar­ter of those ques­tioned (26%) had nev­er vis­it­ed a farm. On aver­age, those ques­tioned had not vis­it­ed a work­ing farm in over nine years. 

Michael Sly, 47, farmer, MHS Farms, Thor­ney who is join­ing hun­dreds of farms in open­ing his gates for this weekend’s Open Farm Sun­day said: ​“It’s reas­sur­ing that peo­ple want to sup­port British farm­ers and are even will­ing to pay more to do so. The results high­light the impor­tance of strength­en­ing the public’s con­nec­tion with farm­ing and food. Open Farm Sun­day is a fan­tas­tic way to do this. We’re hop­ing that by get­ting peo­ple out onto a farm this week­end they can find out more about what, and how much food, we pro­duce in this country.” 

Wor­ry­ing­ly the sur­vey also revealed that many adults still strug­gle to under­stand basic food knowl­edge, such as which food comes from which crop or ani­mal. More than one in four peo­ple ques­tioned (26%) were unable to iden­ti­fy that milk came from a dairy cow, one in five (22%) did not know that eggs came from chick­ens, and just under a quar­ter (23%) were unaware that bacon comes from pigs. More than half of those ques­tioned (51%) also didn’t make the link between a dairy cow and but­ter, and more than a third (37%) could not con­nect steak with beef cattle. 

Even when it comes to pop­u­lar prod­ucts like beer, por­ridge or mus­tard, many fail to make the con­nec­tion to what is grown on a British farm. Only one in five could iden­ti­fy a pic­ture of bar­ley as an ingre­di­ent in beer, and only one in sev­en knew that oats were used in por­ridge. Mean­while, six­teen per­cent didn’t know crops used for break­fast cere­als are grown in this coun­try and four in ten (42%) were unaware that mus­tard seed is grown on British farms. 

Annabel Shack­le­ton, Open Farm Sun­day Man­ag­er at LEAF added: ​“Open Farm Sun­day is the ide­al oppor­tu­ni­ty for peo­ple of all ages to vis­it a farm and dis­cov­er more about the world of farm­ing and the sto­ry behind their food. By spend­ing time on a farm, talk­ing to farm­ers and to the many oth­er pro­fes­sion­als involved in the indus­try – from agron­o­mists to vets — the day offers a unique insight into this vital indus­try and helps peo­ple to val­ue the work farm­ers do and the food they eat.” 

To view the full press release click here.