Food and bio­di­ver­si­ty will be at the heart of LEAF Open Farm Sunday’s (LOFS) two-day vir­tu­al event in Sep­tem­ber. Fea­tur­ing live inter­ac­tive tours and demon­stra­tions from farm­ers and chefs from around the UK on 19^th and 20^th Sep­tem­ber, organ­is­ers Link­ing Envi­ron­ment And Farm­ing (LEAF) are call­ing on farm­ers to get involved by shar­ing their own short film clips, pho­tos and sto­ries of food and farm­ing across social media.

This builds on the suc­cess of the first vir­tu­al Online Farm Sun­day held in June to mark the orig­i­nal date of farming’s annu­al open day and which attract­ed thou­sands of view­ers. LOFS is team­ing up with British Food Fort­night and Scot­tish Food and Drink Fort­night, also held in Sep­tem­ber, in an ambi­tious back-to-back week­end which brings a new cook­ery ele­ment to cel­e­brate not only farm­ing but the food it produces. 

Farm­ers can take part through Face­book, Twit­ter and Insta­gram using #LOFS20. The focus on Sat­ur­day 19^th is nutri­tious food, sea­son­al recipes and cook­ery demon­stra­tions. On Sun­day 20^th farm­ers across Britain are invit­ed to vir­tu­al­ly open their farm gates and show the pub­lic how their food is pro­duced and the amaz­ing work they are doing to pro­tect and enhance the wildlife and bio­di­ver­si­ty on their farms. 

Farm­ers will be encour­aged to go live on Face­book, send in videos and share pho­tographs about their wildlife and bio­di­ver­si­ty high­lights. Whether it is bee friend­ly crops, habi­tat banks or wild­flower mead­ows to boost bio­di­ver­si­ty, the day will be a vir­tu­al cel­e­bra­tion of all that farm­ers do to pro­tect and enhance the envi­ron­ment and the val­ue of nature to people’s health and wellbeing.

Annabel Shack­le­ton, LEAF Open Farm Sun­day Man­ag­er, said:

“At the very heart of LEAF Open Farm Sun­day is telling the real sto­ries of farm­ing and this is the per­fect oppor­tu­ni­ty for farm­ers across the coun­try to get involved and col­lec­tive­ly make a huge pos­i­tive impact on the British public.

“It is not the event we had orig­i­nal­ly planned for 2020, but in fact both of our vir­tu­al events – in June and in Sep­tem­ber — pro­vide an amaz­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty to involve more farm­ers from all cor­ners of the coun­try. These could be farm­ers who may not have been able to host a LEAF Open Farm Sun­day event for what­ev­er rea­son before, but who can dip their toe in this year with as lit­tle as one pho­to or a self-made video on their social chan­nels. What we want to show is a real­ly rich and diverse kalei­do­scope of farm­ing sto­ries from the peo­ple who can tell them best.”

The recent pan­dem­ic has high­light­ed to the nation the val­ue of food as well as fresh air and coun­try­side, all in which farm­ers play a fun­da­men­tal role. The vir­tu­al for­mat cre­ates a pow­er­ful plat­form to reach out to more peo­ple than ever before, includ­ing those who may not have been able to attend an open farm event in the past. 

Northum­ber­land mixed farmer, John Ren­ner, and long-term LEAF Open Farm Sun­day host farmer explained:

“We have always wel­comed around a 100 peo­ple when we have opened our gates for LEAF Open Farm Sun­day, which is a great num­ber to keep it per­son­al. That said, hav­ing tak­en part in the June vir­tu­al event, we reached over ten thou­sand, which was incred­i­bly reward­ing and great to know so many peo­ple engaged with our farm story. 

“With the increased inter­est in cook­ing from scratch and the prove­nance of food, this is the moment to main­tain the momen­tum and keep British food front of mind so when peo­ple are in the super­mar­ket they active­ly select local, sus­tain­ably pro­duced or con­sid­er buy­ing direct from the farm.

“I would encour­age every­one who plays a part in the UK farm­ing indus­try to get involved this Sep­tem­ber. It doesn’t take much time and it is real­ly good fun. Imag­ine the impact if every­one in the indus­try — from farm­ers to agron­o­mists, vets, trac­tor mechan­ics, shear­ers and millers — post­ed a pic­ture, video or mes­sage on their social chan­nels on Sun­day 20^th September.”

The LEAF Open Farm Sun­day web­site will have pages devot­ed to the two themes, and the event’s spon­sors — AHDB, Arla, Asda, BASF, Co-op, Defra, Farm­ers Week­ly, Fron­tier Agri­cul­ture, John Deere, Kellogg’s, LEAF Mar­que, NFU, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Wait­rose — will be shar­ing videos, pho­tos, activ­i­ties, recipes, down­loads and links through­out the two days. 

For farm­ers con­sid­er­ing get­ting involved, LEAF’s Speak Out Toolk­it is packed with easy-to-use guid­ance and resources, pro­vid­ing step by step sup­port for vir­tu­al communications.

Some top tips for self-film­ing high­light­ed in a recent LOFS host farmer meet­ing include:

• Go live if you are con­fi­dent! 82% of view­ers would rather watch a live video. If this isn’t an option, ​‘on the day’ relata­bil­i­ty is also pop­u­lar. Take a pho­to or video that morn­ing and post it the same day. 
• When film­ing, keep things fun and light-heart­ed where you can 
• Make sure you have a good back­drop – cow? com­bine? woods? 
• If you have a par­tic­u­lar mes­sage you want to get across – say things three times in three dif­fer­ent ways to help the audi­ence absorb it 
• Authen­tic­i­ty is key – do not edit videos too much – the pub­lic like the raw material 
• Use visu­al con­tent – be pre­pared with props 
• Always film with your phone in land­scape (not portrait) 
• Use #LOFS20, tag @OpenFarmSunday and have fun! 

The full press release is also avail­able to be viewed here.