This year, farm­ers wel­comed over 170,000 peo­ple onto farms across Britain on Sun­day 11^th 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 9^th 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 9^th 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. 

• LEAF Open Farm Sun­day 2024 will take place on 9^th June 2024. Reg­is­ter to host an event at www​.farm​sun​day​.org

Read the full release here.