With farm vis­its on hold and LEAF Open Farm Sun­day post­poned to Sep­tem­ber, the organ­is­ers, Link­ing Envi­ron­ment And Farm­ing, have announced they are run­ning their very first LEAF Online Farm Sun­day. On Sun­day 7^th June, farm­ers across the UK are being invit­ed to share their world of farm­ing across social media to con­nect the pub­lic with food pro­duc­tion and the coun­try­side vir­tu­al­ly using #LOFS20.

Man­ag­er of LEAF Open Farm Sun­day (LOFS) Annabel Shack­le­ton said: 

“We have such amaz­ing sup­port from across the farm­ing indus­try and the pub­lic for LEAF Open Farm Sun­day and we want­ed to cel­e­brate it and all those who get involved, albeit in a dif­fer­ent way. It is sad that the on-farm events can­not run as usu­al, but this will be a great oppor­tu­ni­ty for even more farm­ers to get involved online. Also, fam­i­lies will be able to get an insight into a whole range of farm­ing enter­pris­es across Britain in one day, in a very acces­si­ble way!”

From 8am to 8pm farm­ers from Aberdeen­shire to Jer­sey, and across all farm­ing sec­tors, will be tak­ing over the LOFS Face­book chan­nel and host­ing vir­tu­al tours show­cas­ing what is involved in pro­duc­ing food, enhanc­ing the envi­ron­ment, and some of the amaz­ing sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy involved. This vir­tu­al for­mat allows for live inter­ac­tion and ques­tions from the public. 

“We have an amaz­ing fan-base of vis­i­tors who sup­port LEAF Open Farm Sun­day each year who are keen to keep in touch with what’s hap­pen­ing on farms,” said Mrs Shack­le­ton. ​“We would love the farm­ing com­mu­ni­ty across the UK to post short film clips and images through­out the day on their own chan­nels using the hash­tag #LOFS20, and like and share posts to show the fab­u­lous work that they are doing on their farms to keep the nation fed whilst man­ag­ing our beau­ti­ful coun­try­side. This will cre­ate a pow­er­ful, colour­ful kalei­do­scope filled with the per­son­al­i­ties and work of our agri­cul­tur­al indus­try.”

Farm­ing Fortnight

LEAF Education’s two-week long cel­e­bra­tion of farm­ing, Farm­ing Fort­night, runs from 1^st-12^th June. Top­ic sheets, case stud­ies and videos explore dif­fer­ent farm­ing sec­tors and sup­port home edu­ca­tors with inspir­ing ses­sions around food and farm­ing. Each day of the cam­paign has its own farm­ing theme and accom­pa­ny­ing social media hash­tag – from arable farm­ing #Trac­torTues­day to sheep #Wool­ly­Wednes­day and #Future­Farm­ing.

www​.coun​tryside​class​room​.org​.uk/​f​a​r​m​i​n​g​f​o​r​t​night

LEAF Open Farm Sun­day 20^th September

The plan is still for LEAF Open Farm Sun­day to take place on the lat­er date of Sun­day 20^th Sep­tem­ber. Mrs Shack­le­ton said: 

“We are keep­ing a watch­ing brief but we very much hope that farm­ers will be able to open their gates and share their farm with the pub­lic in Sep­tem­ber, even if on a small­er scale. The more farms that do this, the more we can share the cru­cial role farm­ing plays in our soci­ety and econ­o­my. We rec­om­mend that farm­ers who organ­ise an event use the LOFS free tick­et­ing ser­vice so they can man­age num­bers and com­mu­ni­cate any event changes to vis­i­tors.”

LEAF Online social media 7^th June 2020 

#LOFS20

Face­book: @LEAFopenfarmsunday Twit­ter: @OpenFarmSunday

For the full press release, click here.