LEAF Open Farm Sun­day 2023 results:

• 257 farms opened wel­com­ing 170,900 visitors
• 89% said that vis­it­ing a farm has encour­aged them to buy more British food 
• 87% said it has increased their trust in British farming 
• 88% report­ed they learnt some­thing new about farming
• 72% felt that the indus­try is adapt­ing to help com­bat the cli­mate crisis
• 41% report­ed that the farm vis­it had inspired some­one in their group to con­sid­er a career in farming.

The grow­ing impact of farm vis­its in con­nect­ing the pub­lic with farm­ing and food pro­duc­tion has, once again, been demon­strat­ed by this year’s LEAF Open Farm Sunday.

Pub­lish­ing the results of the host farmer and vis­i­tor sur­veys today (1^st August 2023), Annabel Shack­le­ton, LEAF Open Farm Sun­day Man­ag­er said: 

“Expe­ri­enc­ing farm­ing first-hand, see­ing the real­i­ties of food pro­duc­tion and meet­ing with farm­ers face to face is hav­ing a huge impact, rais­ing aware­ness of the world class pro­duc­tion and wel­fare stan­dards British farm­ers work to and all they are doing to address the cli­mate crisis.”

“Going out onto farm gives peo­ple a ful­ly immer­sive expe­ri­ence to see, touch, smell, hear and talk farm­ing! Open Farm Sun­day 2023 hosts have deliv­ered some amaz­ing, mem­o­rable on-farm events which have been so valu­able build­ing trust and under­stand­ing in British agri­cul­ture, and putting farm­ing back in the heart of communities.”

“The feed­back from vis­i­tors has been incred­i­ble, demon­strat­ing the val­ue of Open Farm Sunday’s role in con­nect­ing con­sumers with food pro­duc­ers, and high­light­ing the impor­tance of farm­ing in meet­ing our cli­mate change challenges.”

Com­ment­ing on LOFS, one vis­i­tor said:

“Fan­tas­tic expe­ri­ence, show­ing how farm­ing can work in har­mo­ny with the envi­ron­ment to help feed the world.”

LEAF Open Farm Sun­day took place on the 11^th June with 257 farm­ers across Britain open­ing their gates, sup­port by 5500 helpers and wel­com­ing over 170,900 visitors.

Results from the post event vis­i­tor sur­vey showed that 87% of vis­i­tors said that the farm vis­it had increased their trust in British farm­ing and 41% report­ed that the farm vis­it had inspired some­one in their group to con­sid­er a career in farming.

Reflect­ing on this year’s LEAF Open Farm Sun­day, Carl Edwards, LEAF Direc­tor, Edu­ca­tion and Pub­lic Engage­ment added: 

“Once again, LEAF Open Farm Sun­day offered thou­sands of peo­ple a fan­tas­tic oppor­tu­ni­ty to see farm­ing first-hand, to see for them­selves how their food is pro­duced and meet the farm­ers mak­ing it all pos­si­ble. We’ve been over­whelmed by all the sup­port and incred­i­ble feed­back from both vis­i­tors and farm­ers alike, which show­case the many ben­e­fits of con­nect­ing con­sumers with pro­duc­ers out on farm and the pure joy of tak­ing part in farming’s annu­al open day. A huge thank you to every­one involved, in par­tic­u­lar all our host farm­ers, their helpers and our sponsors.”

LOFS 2023 prin­ci­pal spon­sors are: AHDB, Arla Foods, Asda, BASF, Coop, Defra, Farm­ers Week­ly, Fron­tier Agri­cul­ture, John Deere, LEAF Mar­que, M&S, NFU, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose.

Open Farm Sun­day 2024 will take place on the 9^th June. Farm­ers wish­ing to take part can reg­is­ter their event at: www​.farm​sun​day​.org

Watch our high­lights video: