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LEAF Open Farm Sunday announces plans to support new host farmers

LEAF has today announced new plans to support host farmers opening their gates for the first time for LEAF Open Farm Sunday.

Fol­low­ing exten­sive research car­ried out this sum­mer to bet­ter under­stand the bar­ri­ers and chal­lenges to farm­ers host­ing a LEAF Open Farm Sun­day event, the out­comes have been used to shape a new pro­gramme of sup­port for farm­ers open­ing their gates to the pub­lic in June. 

A new infor­ma­tion pack, specif­i­cal­ly for farm­ers con­sid­er­ing open­ing for the first time, has been devel­oped. The pack is full of infor­ma­tion and ideas to give farm­ers a bet­ter under­stand­ing of how they can take part in LEAF Open Farm Sun­day, what is involved and answer fre­quent­ly asked ques­tions – before farm­ers take the deci­sion to reg­is­ter an event. 

Annabel Shack­le­ton, LEAF Open Farm Sun­day Man­ag­er explains: The research high­light­ed an oppor­tu­ni­ty to help more farm­ers at the start of the deci­sion-mak­ing process. 95% of expe­ri­enced hosts found the Host Farmer Hand­book invalu­able and 91% val­ued the free resources. How­ev­er, amongst the farm­ers sur­veyed who had nev­er tak­en part, over half said they would con­sid­er host­ing a LEAF Open Farm Sun­day event but the major­i­ty (63%) were not aware of the range of tools and free resources avail­able from LEAF. So this new pack bridges that infor­ma­tion gap.” 

The pack has been devel­oped ready for the launch of LEAF Open Farm Sun­day 2019 on Wednes­day 7th Novem­ber at the Farm Busi­ness Inno­va­tion Show at the NEC Birm­ing­ham (7th & 8th Novem­ber). Copies will be avail­able on the LEAF stand 2306 and the LEAF Open Farm Sun­day team will be there to answer ques­tions through­out the show. 

On Wednes­day 7th at 15.30 in The­atre 6, LEAF Open Farm Sun­day Man­ag­er, Annabel Shack­le­ton and local farmer, Tere­sa Pick­worth, will be shar­ing their top tips on what makes a great LEAF Open Farm Sun­day event. 

Oth­er sup­port planned over the com­ing months to address farm­ers’ needs includes a region­al sup­port net­work to pro­vide help and advice to host farm­ers and share top tips and tricks, access to a tick­et­ing ser­vice to help farm­ers con­trol the num­ber of vis­i­tors to their event – a key con­cern for many new host farm­ers, plus access to a com­mu­ni­ca­tions toolk­it to pro­vide all the skills and know-how to engage with visitors 

Ms Shack­le­ton explains: 

Just over 360 farm­ers opened their gates this year, 26% tak­ing part for the first time. We are keen to sup­port and encour­age more farm­ers to take part in 2019 to real­ly show­case the amaz­ing breadth and diver­si­ty of British agriculture. 

Over the sum­mer, we have talked with farm­ers, lis­tened to their expe­ri­ences and exam­ined the per­ceived bar­ri­ers that may be stop­ping them from host­ing an event. Our new pro­gramme of sup­port is being devel­oped in response to their feed­back and is aimed at mak­ing it as easy as pos­si­ble for farm­ers to get involved. The main mes­sage that we will be con­vey­ing is that every event mat­ters. Farm­ers should not think that events have to attract hun­dreds of vis­i­tors. A farm walk for friends and neigh­bours is just as pow­er­ful in shin­ing a light on what farm­ing delivers. 

Most of all, we want to inspire, moti­vate and ignite that spark that will encour­age more farm­ers to get involved in this spe­cial day – our farm­ing industry’s annu­al open day.” 

The new pack will also be avail­able to down­load from the LEAF Open Farm Sun­day web­site www​.farm​sun​day​.org after 7thNovem­ber 2018.

If you are a farmer and wish to host a LEAF Open Farm Sun­day event then please reg­is­ter at www​.farm​sun​day​.org/​o​p​e​n​-​m​y​-farm from the 7th Novem­ber 2018

To view the full press release click here.

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