There is no doubt that LEAF Open Farm Sun­day will look slight­ly dif­fer­ent this year. The trend is for small­er events, with activ­i­ties where vis­i­tors can man­age their own learn­ing, such as self-guid­ed farm walks. Every farmer that takes part will still have full auton­o­my to decide on the type of event they would like to offer, for how long and for how many people.

There is also a greater empha­sis on using a free tick­et­ing sys­tem, such as Try­Book­ing or Eventbrite, to record and man­age vis­i­tor num­bers with both sys­tems offer­ing an easy, auto­mat­ed solu­tion. There is also flex­i­bil­i­ty on when events take place. Cen­tral pro­mo­tion will focus on the 27^th but farm­ers can choose any Sun­day in June to open their gates and still ben­e­fit from LOFS brand­ing and resources. 

LEAF Open Farm Sun­day Man­ag­er, Annabel Shack­le­ton explained why it is more impor­tant than ever to take part,

“LEAF Open Farm Sun­day plays a vital role pro­mot­ing British farm­ing, dis­pelling myths and help­ing peo­ple to val­ue the food they eat. We are active­ly encour­ag­ing more small­er events this year. A sim­ple farm walk for 30 peo­ple is both reward­ing and man­age­able for all involved. We know there may be some ner­vous­ness around Covid and we want to ensure both host farm­ers, and vis­i­tors attend­ing, feel safe and con­fi­dent to go ahead. As the­atres, cin­e­mas and din­ing indoors reopens, remem­ber trans­mis­sion rates are sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduced out­doors. The farm­ing stage – our won­der­ful coun­try­side — is the per­fect venue to safe­ly wel­come visitors.”

Riv­er Croft in Inver­ness-shire held their first LEAF Open Farm Sun­day event in 2017 and in 2018 start­ed using the tick­et­ing ser­vice to effec­tive­ly man­age vis­i­tor num­bers. Michelle Ander­son-Car­roll explained why it was so useful:

“In 2018, we decid­ed to use the LOFS tick­et­ing sys­tem that LEAF offers (using Try­book­ing) and it real­ly is bril­liant! We set up two book­able tours but with a very man­age­able num­ber of 35 vis­i­tors on each and pro­mot­ed the link on Face­book. Both events were booked up quick­ly, but we also main­tained a wait­ing list on the sys­tem. It real­ly helped with know­ing when peo­ple were arriv­ing too. The track to our croft is a mile long with very few places for cars to pass – so before the sec­ond tour start­ed, we asked the vis­i­tors from the first tour not to leave until the sec­ond wave of vis­i­tors had arrived.”

Over recent months peo­ple have become more engaged than ever with farm­ing, nature, where their food comes from and how their food pur­chas­ing deci­sion impacts on cli­mate change

With hun­dreds of farm­ers across Britain expect­ed to take part in LOFS this year, the indus­try ini­tia­tive con­tin­ues to build com­mu­ni­ty con­nec­tions and help raise aware­ness of all that farm­ers do to main­tain the coun­try­side, enhance the envi­ron­ment and pro­duce our food.

Mrs Shack­le­ton said, 

“Our research shows that 87% of vis­i­tors on LEAF Open Farm Sun­day found the day changed the way they think about farm­ing from the tech­nol­o­gy required to run a farm­ing busi­ness through to how more sus­tain­able, regen­er­a­tive farm­ing is help­ing to address the cli­mate cri­sis through bet­ter soil and water man­age­ment, reduc­ing waste, using renew­able ener­gy and enhanc­ing biodiversity.

“It is also a chance to raise pub­lic aware­ness of the Coun­try­side Code and pub­lic access. Recent­ly there has been an increase in dam­age to grass and cere­al fields that look bare to the un-informed and there­fore deemed accept­able to walk on, but actu­al­ly are home to our future food. LEAF Open Farm Sun­day is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to explain why keep­ing to the des­ig­nat­ed foot­path is so impor­tant, with­out caus­ing con­flict or negativity.”

All farm­ers who reg­is­ter their LOFS event at www​.farm​sun​day​.org receive a com­pre­hen­sive hand­book and free resources There is a net­work of region­al LOFS ambas­sadors and the team at LEAF avail­able to dis­cuss plans and offer guid­ance. Farm­ers do not need to be mem­bers of LEAF to take part, but they do need to reg­is­ter their event. 

/ENDS  

725 words

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion, a case study or to arrange an inter­view please con­tact Rebec­ca Dawes or Susan­nah Pâté at Jane Craigie Mar­ket­ing on: rebecca@​janecraigie.​com or susannah@​janecraigie.​com or 07792 467730 . Top tips for man­ag­ing a farm walk has been includ­ed a the end of this release.

Edi­tors’ notes:  

• LEAF Open Farm Sun­day is man­aged by LEAF (Link­ing Envi­ron­ment And Farm­ing) — the lead­ing organ­i­sa­tion deliv­er­ing and pro­mot­ing Cli­mate Pos­i­tive action, thriv­ing, resilient and exem­plar agro-eco­log­i­cal farm­ing at an increas­ing­ly glob­al lev­el. Work­ing with farm­ers, the food indus­try, sci­en­tists, envi­ron­men­tal­ists, teach­ers, young peo­ple and con­sumers we are look­ing at new ways to deliv­er pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and pros­per­i­ty among our farm­ers, enrich the envi­ron­ment and engage young peo­ple and soci­ety in a valu­able and mean­ing­ful way. LEAF set up and has man­aged LEAF Open Farm Sun­day since it began in 2006. (LEAF is a reg­is­tered char­i­ty no: 1045781) 
• LEAF Open Farm Sun­day 2021 will take place on 27^th June 2021. Reg­is­ter to host at www​.farm​sun​day​.org. 
• In addi­tion, LEAF Online Farm Sun­day vir­tu­al farm tours will take place on Sun­day 28^th March and 26^th Sep­tem­ber, live on Face­book @LEAFOpenFarmSunday, and across Twit­ter @OpenFarmSunday and Insta­gram @OpenFarmSunday 
• Spon­sors of LEAF Open Farm Sun­day include: AHDB, Arla Foods, Asda, BASF, Co-op, Farm­ers Week­ly, Fron­tier Agri­cul­ture, John Deere, Kellogg’s, LEAF Mar­que, NFU, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose. 

Top tips for organ­is­ing a sim­ple farm walk for 30 people.

1. Plan a sim­ple farm walk that lasts an hour. If your route is self-guid­ed, pre­pare a map that vis­i­tors can fol­low and place some small signs at dif­fer­ent loca­tions, so they can learn about farm­ing and the coun­try­side. You can down­load some exam­ples from the LEAF Open Farm Sun­day web­site. If your walk is guid­ed, how about team­ing up with some local farm­ers so you can take it in turns to talk about what you do.
2. Reg­is­ter your event free of charge at www​.farm​sun​day​.org and order your free resources. You will receive a host farmer hand­book that pro­vides lots of top tips and tem­plates to pre­pare for your event.
3. Set up a vis­i­tor book­ing sys­tem, and set your max­i­mum num­ber of vis­i­tors. You could offer mul­ti­ple walks dur­ing the day, such as, one in the morn­ing, one at lunchtime and one in the afternoon.
4. Pro­mote your event on your social media chan­nels, or print a poster for your local area. A tem­plate is avail­able and LEAF will share your event on the LOFS web­site if you give per­mis­sion – its optional.
5. Invite oth­ers to join you on the day. For exam­ple, your agron­o­mist, vet, feed mer­chant or trac­tor deal­er­ship. They could bring props to show vis­i­tors, such as ani­mal feed or wheat seed, which pro­vides fur­ther inter­est when telling the farm­ing story.
6. Set­up a hand­wash­ing area. A cold run­ning water tap with liq­uid soap and paper tow­els is all you need and will ensure your vis­i­tors remain safe. Please note hand gels do not kill all bac­te­ria on-farm so these are not suit­able. You will find some fan­tas­tic Shaun the Sheep hand-wash­ing signs avail­able to download.
7. Plan where vis­i­tors are going to park, and have a back-up plan for wet weath­er. i.e. could vis­i­tors meet in an open barn and go to dif­fer­ent ​“sta­tions” to find out more about what you do on your farm. If you are an arable farm you could have three sta­tions – below ground (soil, roots, seeds and worms), above ground (crop, leaves and grain) and food on the table (bread from wheat, Mal­te­sers from barley).
8. Com­plete the risk assess­ment and Covid risk assess­ment tem­plates, sup­plied by LEAF, and let your insur­ance com­pa­ny know you are tak­ing part.
9. On-the-day check the route is safe for vis­i­tors, and plan a meet­ing point for their arrival. A warm wel­come at the start is always well received and allows you to meet all your vis­i­tors. If you are offer­ing more than one walk dur­ing the day, have a sep­a­rate fin­ish­ing point and allow enough time between groups to give peo­ple time to head on their way.
10. Enjoy the day!

Read the full press release here.