LEAF’s Online Farm Sun­day, which this year replaced the tra­di­tion­al on-farm events, includ­ed a packed pro­gramme of inter­ac­tive live video tours and demon­stra­tions on the LEAF Open Farm Sun­day Face­book page, with farm­ers across the coun­try also shar­ing their own pic­tures, recipes and video clips across social media.

On Sun­day 20^th Sep­tem­ber, view­ers went behind the scenes at farms across the British Isles tour­ing parts of farms that they would not nor­mal­ly get a chance to see dur­ing a tra­di­tion­al LEAF Open Farm Sun­day ​’live’ vis­it. For the first time, two inter­na­tion­al farms also opened their vir­tu­al gates in West Africa and Spain. 

LEAF’s Hon­orary Pres­i­dent, HRH The Count­ess of Wes­sex, record­ed a spe­cial mes­sage of sup­port to kick off the day, before the first live video wel­comed peo­ple to see veg­etable har­vest­ing in action at LEAF Demon­stra­tion Farm, G’s Fresh. The day’s tours then made stops at an organ­ic Arla dairy farm in Dorset, a Welsh sheep farm, mixed farms in Scot­land and Jer­sey, pigs in Wens­ley­dale and con­clud­ed with NFU Hor­ti­cul­ture and Pota­toes Board Chair­man, Ali Cap­per show­ing view­ers her fruit and hops farm in Worces­ter­shire. Vir­tu­al tours from fur­ther afield enabled peo­ple to get a glimpse of a Kellogg’s rice farm in Spain and a LEAF Mar­que pineap­ple farm in Ghana.

Phil Le Maistre, who gave a live tour of his Jer­sey Dairy farm, said: ​“We had a great time host­ing for LEAF Online Farm Sun­day. We had orig­i­nal­ly planned to open for Open Farm Sun­day in June, how­ev­er, due to Covid this wasn’t pos­si­ble. It was slight­ly strange doing the live stream espe­cial­ly not hav­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic in front of you ask­ing ques­tions, how­ev­er, being able to show the pub­lic the process of milk­ing the cows in the par­lour was fan­tas­tic. Plus, we were able to extend our audi­ence to every­one in the UK and fur­ther afield, not just Jer­sey! We enjoyed hav­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty to show peo­ple the stan­dards which mod­ern day farm­ers adhere to along with all the hard work that goes into putting all of our great LEAF Mar­que cer­ti­fied Jer­sey Dairy prod­ucts on the table”.

Sunday’s farm focus was pre­ced­ed by a feast of nutri­tion­al sea­son­al recipes and cook­ery demon­stra­tions using local British pro­duce, and talks on sus­tain­able diets, held on the Sat­ur­day 19^th Sep­tem­ber — the start of British Food Fort­night. North East LEAF Demon­stra­tion Farmer John Ren­ner was joined on a Zoom call with chef Richard Sim to show­case Northum­ber­land lamb. Berk­shire pork and Welsh beef fea­tured in demon­stra­tions from New­lyns Farm Shop and Cook­ery School in Hamp­shire and Hotel Plas Hyfryd in Pem­brokeshire. Fur­ther demon­stra­tions includ­ed a healthy piz­za for kids from farmer’s wife, cook and edu­ca­tor, Karen Wat­son of Essex’s Food4Thought, and a cock­tail made by Fluffy Moo’s cook, Lucy Wil­son with Scot­tish blue­ber­ries from their neigh­bour­ing farm.

The live videos were sup­port­ed by a series of pre-record­ed videos and con­tent look­ing at prove­nance, wildlife, bio­di­ver­si­ty and sus­tain­able farm­ing meth­ods, includ­ing an edu­ca­tion­al video explain­ing the work­ings of a John Deere com­bine harvester.

More than 660k oppor­tu­ni­ties for peo­ple to see food and farm­ing-relat­ed con­tent in Sep­tem­ber were gen­er­at­ed on the LEAF (Link­ing Envi­ron­ment And Farm­ing) chan­nels alone, in addi­tion to activ­i­ty from farm­ers, organ­i­sa­tions and spon­sors increas­ing the reach and impact of the cam­paign even further.

Car­o­line Drum­mond, LEAF Chief Exec­u­tive and farm­ing ambas­sador for Love British Food said: ​“We’re delight­ed that LEAF Online Farm Sun­day gave us the oppor­tu­ni­ty to show­case the full kalei­do­scope of farm­ing in such an hon­est way. The week­end showed every­thing our farm­ers do to pro­duce food, while nur­tur­ing the wildlife and bio­di­ver­si­ty on their land, includ­ing the tech­nol­o­gy, the skills, the inno­va­tion, and the pas­sion that goes into food pro­duc­tion. I’d like to say a mas­sive thank you to all the farm­ers, chefs, dieti­tians and cooks who took part and to all our spon­sors and sup­port­ers who made this amaz­ing week­end possible.”

LEAF Open Farm Sun­day man­ag­er, Annabel Shack­le­ton said: ​“It has been won­der­ful cel­e­bra­tion of food and farm­ing enabling peo­ple to trav­el the length and breadth of the UK and over­seas in a sin­gle week­end! What an oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet so many farm­ers and hear about their farm­ing prac­tices. The feed­back from indus­try and our vir­tu­al vis­i­tors has been so pos­i­tive we are look­ing to build on this con­cept in 2021. Farm­ing has such a great sto­ry to tell, there is a real appetite amongst the pub­lic to learn more. We will embrace tech­nol­o­gy to reach far and wide to share the sto­ry of farm­ing and every­thing it deliv­ers. But we also look for­ward to sup­port­ing farm­ers host­ing on-farm events on LEAF Open Farm Sun­day on 13^th June 2021.”

All the vir­tu­al live tours and pre­sen­ta­tions will be avail­able to view on the LEAF Open Farm Sun­day web­site www​.farm​sun​day​.org from 5pm, 22 Sep­tem­ber, along­side recipes, activ­i­ties, videos and infor­ma­tion from 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. 

Read the full press release here.