Thank you to every­one who host­ed, helped, spon­sored and vis­it­ed LEAF Open Farm Sun­day 2019 – what a huge success!

• 250,450 vis­i­tors to LEAF Open Farm Sun­day Events
• 365 farms open­ing across the UK
• ^*8% increase in vis­i­tors from urban areas
• 96% vis­i­tors report­ed event was ​‘very good’ or ​‘excel­lent’
• 91% vis­i­tors said they ​‘learnt some­thing new’ 

^*Com­pared to 2018 data 

Results from the vis­i­tors exit sur­vey released by LEAF show the grow­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty and reach of the annu­al event with an 8% increase in peo­ple com­ing from urban areas and a 14% increase in vis­i­tors who had been to a LEAF Open Farm Sun­day event before. The main moti­va­tions for vis­it­ing a farm includ­ed ​“hav­ing a fam­i­ly trip out” (46%), ​“show­ing sup­port for British farm­ers” (31%) and ​“find­ing out more about British farm­ing and what farm­ers do” (23%). Fur­ther­more, 91% of vis­i­tors report­ed ​“learn­ing some­thing new” about farm­ing with increas­ing lev­els of inter­est in find­ing out what farm­ers are doing to care for the envi­ron­ment. Many peo­ple report­ed they were ​“amazed to see how farm­ers are try­ing to bal­ance crop pro­duc­tion and pro­tect­ing wood­land, birds and pol­li­na­tors” and ​“how much farm­ing con­tributes to the environment.”

LEAF Open Farm Sun­day Man­ag­er, Annabel Shack­le­ton said:

“This year’s results are excit­ing on so many lev­els. Once again, they show the pow­er of LEAF Open Farm Sun­day in con­nect­ing peo­ple – from both urban and rur­al areas – to where their food comes from, how it is pro­duced and the farm­ers who make it all hap­pen. We are mak­ing a strong impact in reach­ing out to peo­ple from urban areas, open­ing up oppor­tu­ni­ties to learn more about sus­tain­able farm­ing and the sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy that lies behind it.”

“Inter­est this year from vis­i­tors want­i­ng to learn more about how farm­ers are pro­tect­ing our nat­ur­al resources like soil and water, how they are using more renew­able sources of ener­gy and what they are doing to pro­tect and enhance wildlife habi­tats has nev­er been greater. It has been won­der­ful to read com­ments from vis­i­tors who want to sup­port British farm­ers, care deeply about how their food is pro­duced as well as being very inter­est­ed in wider issues around sus­tain­abil­i­ty, cli­mate change and ani­mal welfare.”

This year more host farm­ers opt­ed to man­age vis­i­tor num­bers with 13% ask­ing vis­i­tors to book in advance. There was also a 60% increase in small­er, more focused events with few­er than 50 visitors.

“What­ev­er the size and type of event farm­ers choose to organ­ise, LEAF Open Farm Sun­day pro­vides a unique chan­nel through which we can show­case our indus­try, ignite the sup­port and inter­est from the gen­er­al pub­lic and har­ness their sup­port for our British farm­ing indus­try and all it deliv­ers”.

“LEAF Open Farm Sun­day has come a long way since it was first launched in 2006. Our thanks to all the fan­tas­tic farm­ers who have tak­en part, the thou­sands of vis­i­tors who sup­port­ed them and to our spon­sors for their finan­cial and in-kind sup­port. As we progress our plans for the fif­teenth LEAF Open Farm Sun­day on 7^th June 2020, we will con­tin­ue to adapt and respond to input from host farm­ers, spon­sors and stake­hold­ers to ensure its con­tin­ued pos­i­tive impact as Britain’s lead­ing on-farm pub­lic out­reach event.”

LEAF Open Farm Sun­day 2020 will take place on Sun­day 7^th June with reg­is­tra­tions open­ing on the 1^st Novem­ber at www​.farm​sun​day​.org. To keep up to date with all the lat­est news from LEAF Open Farm Sun­day fol­low @openfarmsunday on Twitter. 

LEAF Open Farm Sun­day is huge­ly grate­ful to its spon­sors: AHDB, Arla Foods, Asda, BASF plc, Co-op, Defra, Farm­ers Week­ly, Fron­tier Agri­cul­ture, John Deere, LEAF Mar­que, Marks and Spencer, The Nation­al Farm­ers’ Union, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Wait­rose; and sup­port­ing spon­sors: BBSRC UKRI, CPA and QMS. 

LEAF are call­ing for more farm­ers to get involved next year to meet the increas­ing demand from the pub­lic to vis­it a farm as part of LEAF Open Farm Sunday.

Read the full press release and our LEAF Open Farm Sun­day 2019 brochure.