The twelfth LEAF Open Farm Sun­day once again gave peo­ple the oppor­tu­ni­ty to dis­cov­er all that farm­ing deliv­ers and why farm­ers are proud of what they achieve. Press and media atten­tion was exten­sive with cov­er­age on nation­al radio and TV includ­ing ITV’s Good Morn­ing Britain and This Morn­ing, as well as in con­sumer media. Radio 2’s Chris Evans who inter­viewed dairy farmer Abi Read­er on air, backed the cam­paign by vis­it­ing his local Open Farm Sun­day event and called for more farm­ers to take part next year. Hun­dreds of region­al arti­cles helped pro­mote indi­vid­ual events, with a num­ber of BBC Radio sta­tions inter­view­ing local farm­ers or LEAF Open Farm Sunday’s region­al coordinators. 

This year’s vis­i­tor num­bers took the total to more than 2m since the cam­paign launched. Car­o­line Drum­mond, LEAF Chief Exec­u­tive said: ​“Once again, farm­ers from across the coun­try have come togeth­er to show­case the diver­si­ty and impor­tance of British farm­ing. We have had anoth­er spec­tac­u­lar year, with vis­i­tor num­bers show­ing a clear inter­est from the pub­lic in find­ing out more about farm­ing. This year’s Open Farm Sun­day was a day the whole indus­try should be jus­ti­fi­ably proud of. We called on the pub­lic to get out and show their sup­port for UK farm­ers and they did just this in their thousands.” 

LEAF also wel­comed its Hon­orary Pres­i­dent, HRH The Count­ess of Wes­sex to the Wait­rose Farm, Leck­ford Estate where she toured the event and spoke with staff, helpers and vis­i­tors, as well as speak­ing with ITV Merid­i­an for a fea­ture on the evening news. Car­o­line Drum­mond said ​“Her gen­uine inter­est and com­mit­ment to help­ing the farm­ing indus­try con­nect with the pub­lic was clear­ly evident.” 

As with pre­vi­ous years, the impact of LEAF Open Farm Sun­day was felt far beyond the farm gate. Its Face­book page had a reach of over 280k in the month lead­ing up to 11^th June, with farm­ers and con­sumers alike shar­ing con­tent and dis­cus­sion about the event. Video con­tent, includ­ing a rework­ing of the Old Mac­don­ald nurs­ery rhyme as ​‘Young Mac­Don­ald’ to address pub­lic mis­con­cep­tions of farm­ing, helped cre­ate sig­nif­i­cant engage­ment. Many vis­i­tors took to social media after the event to share their pho­tos and words of thanks to the farms involved, with more than 500 pho­tos sub­mit­ted to the LEAF Open Farm Sun­day pho­to com­pe­ti­tion in less than 24 hours. 

Twen­ty per­cent of farms that opened this year were in the South West with 18% in the South East. The East Mid­lands (13%), East of Eng­land (12%) and West Mid­lands (12%) made up the remain­der of the top five regions*. One in four farms open­ing for LEAF Open Farm Sun­day was doing so for the first time. Plans are already under­way for next year’s Open Farm Sun­day, which will take place on 10^th June 2018, and LEAF are hop­ing the pop­u­lar­i­ty this year will encour­age more farm­ers to get involved. 

Car­o­line Drum­mond said: ​“As the indus­try nego­ti­ates its way towards leav­ing the Euro­pean Union, it has nev­er been more impor­tant for farm­ers to reach out to their cus­tomers and LEAF Open Farm Sun­day plays a crit­i­cal role in mak­ing this hap­pen. We’d like to say thank you to all farm­ers who host­ed events this year, their helpers and our spon­sors. Their pas­sion and ener­gy will go a long way to mak­ing a dif­fer­ence to how the pub­lic per­ceive farm­ing and under­stand its val­ue. We’d like even more peo­ple to have a chance to vis­it a farm next year.” 

LEAF Open Farm Sun­day 2017 spon­sors includ­ed The Agri­cul­ture and Hor­ti­cul­ture Devel­op­ment Board, Arla Foods, Asda, BASF plc, Co-op, Defra, Farm­ers Week­ly, Fron­tier Agri­cul­ture, LEAF Mar­que, Marks and Spencer, Nation­al Farm­ers Union, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose.

Click here for the full press release.