LEAF Open Farm Sunday Search

LEAF Open Farm Sunday connects communities with British farming and food

Over 250 farmers welcomed the public onto their farms for this year’s LEAF Open Farm Sunday (LOFS) to shine a spotlight on the British farming industry and all it delivers.

This year, farm­ers wel­comed over 170,000 peo­ple onto farms across Britain on Sun­day 11th June. Every event was unique, show­cas­ing the whole indus­try, from arable, hor­ti­cul­ture, live­stock and agro-forestry to the sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy involved. Farm­ers shared the same aim of help­ing to bridge the farm and fork dis­con­nect and to demon­strate the industry’s com­mit­ment to sus­tain­abil­i­ty, bio­di­ver­si­ty and deliv­er­ing nutri­tious food and a well-man­aged countryside. 

Vis­it­ing a work­ing farm pro­vid­ed a bril­liant oppor­tu­ni­ty for peo­ple to talk direct­ly with the farm­ers that pro­duce our food, and under­stand what is involved in sus­tain­able food pro­duc­tion, a top­ic that is at the fore­front of many households.

LEAF Hon­orary Pres­i­dent, Her Roy­al High­ness The Duchess of Edin­burgh vis­it­ed the LOFS event at Hamp­ton Estate Farms in Sur­rey. Dur­ing her tour she saw first-hand what farm­ing deliv­ers and met some inspi­ra­tional young peo­ple to hear about how they are forg­ing their careers in the sec­tor. Defra Sec­re­tary of State, The Rt Hon Thérèse Cof­fey MP sup­port­ed by thank­ing all farm­ers open­ing their gates via social media. We were pleased to wel­come Shad­ow Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Daniel Zeich­n­er MP, who vis­it­ed MHS Farms in Cambridgeshire.

Annabel Shack­le­ton, LOFS man­ag­er said: 

At a time when the pub­lic is more aware than ever of the val­ue of their food — in terms of food secu­ri­ty and how much it costs, farming’s annu­al open day is so impor­tant. It offers a fan­tas­tic oppor­tu­ni­ty for the whole indus­try to unite and build sup­port for the sec­tor, show­cas­ing the very best of what they do. Not only have farm­ers col­lec­tive­ly raised the pro­file of British food and farm­ing, but we have also inspired a new gen­er­a­tion of agri-food professionals.” 

We are see­ing an ever-increas­ing desire amongst the pub­lic to learn more about where their food comes from. By tak­ing part in LOFS, farm­ers con­tin­ue to help change people’s per­cep­tions and under­stand­ing of the indus­try. It is a tru­ly mag­i­cal day, bring­ing farm­ing to life for thou­sands of visitors.”

We’re call­ing on all farm­ers to think about how they can get involved in next year’s LEAF Open Farm Sun­day on 9th June and have a real, last­ing pos­i­tive impact in 2024!”

Vis­i­tor and indus­try feed­back has once again been huge­ly positive. 

One LOFS vis­i­tor in North York­shire said:

Had a bril­liant day at Wildon Grange Farm today about 20 mins from our home in Thirsk.

Learnt so much about dairy farm­ing. The chil­dren loved it and left feel­ing inspired. My lit­tle boy has not stopped talk­ing about look­ing for baby cows using the vet’s scan­ning machine and my teenage daugh­ter thinks she may want to go into farm­ing when she leaves school. Thank you so much.” 

Reflect­ing on the day, Mol­ly Bid­dell, from Hamp­ton Estate Farms said:

We had an utter­ly fan­tas­tic Open Farm Sun­day with around 2000 vis­i­tors. It was such an hon­our to wel­come HRH the Duchess of Edin­burgh and to show her the diver­si­ty of things we do at Hamp­ton. Open Farm Sun­day is one of our favourite events of the year, we love con­nect­ing with peo­ple and demon­strat­ing where our food comes from and what farm­ing with nature can look like.”

Ms Shack­le­ton con­grat­u­lates all involved: We’d like to say a big thank you to every­one who made LOFS 2023 anoth­er huge suc­cess, par­tic­u­lar­ly all the host farm­ers, vol­un­teers and spon­sors.”

Man­aged by LEAF (Link­ing Envi­ron­ment And Farm­ing), farming’s annu­al open day has been a high­light in the farm­ing cal­en­dar since 2006, offer­ing vis­i­tors the oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn about food pro­duc­tion, farm­ing and the envi­ron­ment first hand. LOFS is spon­sored nation­al­ly by: AHDB, Arla Foods, Asda, BASF, Co-op, Defra, Farm­ers Week­ly, Fron­tier Agri­cul­ture, John Deere, LEAF Mar­que, M&S, NFU, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Wait­rose. All of which play a huge part in encour­ag­ing farm­ers to get involved, pro­mot­ing the event to the pub­lic, as well as sup­port on the day.

Next year’s LEAF Open Farm Sun­day will take place on Sun­day 9th June 2024.

For more infor­ma­tion on how farm­ers can be involved, vis­it www​.farm​sun​day​.org. To keep up to date with the LEAF Open Farm Sun­day cam­paign on social media, fol­low @OpenFarmSunday.

EDI­TORS NOTES:

  • Email: [email protected] Tel: 02476 413911 

  • Keep up to date with all the LEAF Open Farm Sun­day news and join in the online con­ver­sa­tions using #LOFS23:
    • Twit­ter: @OpenFarmSunday
    • Face­book: @ LEAFOpenFarmSunday 
    • Insta­gram: @OpenFarmSunday
  • 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).
  • Our 2023 LEAF Open Farm Sun­day Prin­ci­pal Spon­sors: AHDB, Arla Foods, Asda, BASF, Coop, Defra, Farm­ers Week­ly, Fron­tier Agri­cul­ture, John Deere, LEAF Mar­que, M&S, NFU, Sains­burys, Tesco and Waitrose. 

Read the full release here.

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