For the first LEAF Open Farm Sun­day since June 2019, thou­sands of peo­ple took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to vis­it a work­ing farm and see first-hand all that is involved in the sus­tain­able pro­duc­tion of the food they eat and what farm­ers do to look after the wider envi­ron­ment. Giv­en the cur­rent Covid reg­u­la­tions, less farms than usu­al chose to open, with pre-book­ing a key require­ment to lim­it vis­i­tor num­bers, but this did not dimin­ish the enthu­si­asm farm­ers put in to shar­ing their farm­ing sto­ries and show­cas­ing British farm­ing. Most farms offered social­ly-dis­tanced farm walks or guid­ed tours, giv­ing vis­i­tors a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to talk direct­ly with farm­ers and enjoy a real­ly per­son­al expe­ri­ence of farming.

Car­o­line Drum­mond, LEAF Chief Exec­u­tive, said: ​“A huge thank you to all the farm­ers who opened their gates on Sun­day. LEAF’s ​‘Take 30’ cam­paign to encour­age farm­ers to take small groups of 30 on a farm walk clear­ly res­onat­ed real­ly well. Of the farms that opened, 1 in 3 did so for the first time, so it was won­der­ful to wel­come some new farm­ers into the LEAF Open Farm Sun­day fam­i­ly. We also real­ly appre­ci­at­ed the feed­back we’ve had from farm­ers who, for a vari­ety of rea­sons, chose not to open this June, but sent mes­sages of sup­port. Many of them have indi­cat­ed that they plan to open again in 2022 and we’re already look­ing for­ward to next year.”

“It has nev­er been more impor­tant that we con­tin­ue to raise aware­ness of all that British farm­ers deliv­er in sup­port­ing our health and well­be­ing, pro­duc­ing nutri­tious food, man­ag­ing our beau­ti­ful coun­try­side and pro­tect­ing and enhanc­ing our envi­ron­ment through cli­mate pos­i­tive, regen­er­a­tive farm­ing. As an indus­try, we need to build deep­er and stronger con­nec­tions with con­sumers, to have con­ver­sa­tions, answer ques­tions and seize every oppor­tu­ni­ty to share what we are doing to address the cli­mate and nature emer­gency. In doing so, this will help dri­ve appre­ci­a­tion, trust and ulti­mate­ly more informed food choices.” 

Ms Drum­mond also acknowl­edged the long-term sup­port from LEAF Open Farm Sun­day Prin­ci­pal Spon­sors: AHDB, Arla Foods, Asda, BASF, Co-op, Farm­ers Week­ly, Fron­tier Agri­cul­ture, John Deere, Kellogg’s, LEAF Mar­que, NFU, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Wait­rose. ​“There is no bet­ter way to achieve sup­port from the pub­lic than by direct on-farm expe­ri­ences like LEAF Open Farm Sun­day – which is why I would also like to thank all our spon­sors for their ongo­ing and vital sup­port, as with­out them, none of this would be possible.”

Defra Farm­ing Min­is­ter, Vic­to­ria Pren­tis MP joined Car­o­line Drum­mond for a tour of Rec­to­ry Farm near Oxford, and said: ​“I am delight­ed to sup­port LEAF Open Farm Sun­day and con­grat­u­late all the farm­ers and their helpers who wel­comed the pub­lic onto farms on Sunday.”

“British farm­ers do so much to not only pro­duce the nutri­tious food we eat, but also to care for the envi­ron­ment. It is vital that peo­ple under­stand more about all that farm­ers do and the high stan­dards of food pro­duc­tion and ani­mal wel­fare in Britain.”

Rec­to­ry Farm, which has a thriv­ing soft fruit and veg­etable Pick Your Own, also pro­duces LEAF Mar­que cer­ti­fied wheat, pota­toes and aspara­gus for pro­cess­ing, sup­ply­ing super­mar­kets and also direct sales to local delis and restau­rants. The ful­ly booked LOFS event wel­comed 50 vis­i­tors each hour dur­ing the day to learn about sus­tain­able farm­ing, see the machin­ery used on the farm and meet the Stan­ley fam­i­ly, their farm­ing team and friends – all there to show­case British farming. 

Imo­gen Stan­ley who led the tour with Min­is­ter Pren­tis, spoke of the impor­tance of com­mu­ni­cat­ing with the pub­lic: ​“I’m so keen to help edu­cate chil­dren and fam­i­lies about farm­ing and how food is pro­duced. Every­one needs to be eat­ing more fresh­ly cooked pro­duce, and what bet­ter way to do that than by giv­ing vis­i­tors the expe­ri­ence of pick­ing their own fruit and veg­eta­bles, and meet­ing the farm­ers who grow crops on a com­mer­cial scale. It was a plea­sure to meet Min­is­ter Pren­tis, show her round our event and intro­duce her to the won­der­ful team of farm­ing friends who have all vol­un­teered to help tell the sto­ry of farm­ing to vis­i­tors at our Open Farm Sun­day event.”

LEAF Open Farm Sun­day 2022 will take place on Sun­day 12^th June.

Faces of LOFS 2021:

Faye Colquhoun, Den­dol­drum Farm, Angus

34 vis­i­tors, 1^st LOFS event

“We were incred­i­bly hes­i­tant around organ­is­ing our first Open Farm Sun­day event, espe­cial­ly dur­ing a world­wide pan­dem­ic. We soon realised that we had noth­ing to wor­ry about. LEAF sup­port­ed us, advised us and help us set up an amaz­ing expe­ri­ence for our vis­i­tors. Wow! What a fan­tas­tic expe­ri­ence for us too! We wish that we’d known how valu­able an expe­ri­ence that Open Farm Sun­day would be for both our vis­i­tors and our­selves. If we had, we would have done this many years ago! It was an incred­i­ble oppor­tu­ni­ty to show­case what we do on a dai­ly basis. It tru­ly was the best expla­na­tion ever of farm to fork!”

Tanya Rob­bins, Did­cott Farm, Worcestershire

250 vis­i­tors; 3^rd LOFS event

“250 booked to attend com­ing from as far afield as Birm­ing­ham, but what’s been love­ly is that we’ve also had peo­ple from the sur­round­ing vil­lages who have walked along the foot­paths to our event. We’ve had some love­ly feed­back – they’ve real­ly enjoyed the day. I’m so glad that we’ve gone ahead and done this. If you get the chance – make the chance to do Open Farm Sun­day it real­ly is worth it!”

Char­lie Beaty, Farm­ers Week­ly Young Farmer Colum­nist, War­wick­shire, vol­un­teer­ing at Rec­to­ry Farm, Oxfordshire

“Its been absolute­ly fan­tas­tic – espe­cial­ly talk­ing to all the chil­dren. They’ve asked some real­ly good ques­tions and to be hon­est I think I’ve found it just as reward­ing and excit­ing as they have!”

Tom Mead, Meads Farm, Cambridgeshire

73 vis­i­tors; 1^st LOFS – 3 evening events!

“We were keen to host an Open Farm Sun­day event this year and the idea of doing a small book­able tour suit­ed us real­ly well. The farm here is right in amongst the vil­lage, bor­der­ing the pri­ma­ry school and peo­ple walk through on foot­paths all the time, we there­fore thought peo­ple might be inter­est­ed to hear more….and they were! We host­ed three evening farm walks last week, 6 – 8pm, lim­it­ed to 25 per tour. We real­ly enjoyed host­ing the tours for our first OFS events. We had real­ly inter­est­ed audi­ences, with good ques­tions and dis­cus­sion. Lots of chat about where our cere­al crops go, how to grow them, why to buy Sil­ver Spoon sug­ar, pes­ti­cides, soil, car­bon and some of the chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties in the farm­ing sec­tor. Every­one stayed around after­wards for a drink and a chat and were real­ly pos­i­tive. We have had lots of thank yous since which gives us a great buzz as we head into a busy har­vest. We will def­i­nite­ly be tak­ing part next year. The book­able farm tours were a great starter OFS for us so we would real­ly rec­om­mend to oth­ers want­i­ng to talk about farm­ing but not nec­es­sar­i­ly host a big event (…yet!).”

Anne Mair Chap­man, Kyp­ie Farm, Northumberland 

60 vis­i­tors; 1^st LOFS event

“We are over the moon with how our first Open Farm Sun­day all went. Our self-guid­ed farm walk was easy to organ­ise, espe­cial­ly with the infor­ma­tion boards and posters from LEAF, AHBD and NFU. Mak­ing the time in the days lead­ing up to LOFS to posi­tion signs, clear walk­ing routes and plan for the day itself real­ly did pay off. We were able to relax, enjoy the day and talk to our vis­i­tors know­ing that we had worked through our ​“to do” list to ensure that we were pro­vid­ing a fam­i­ly friend­ly, Covid safe, out­door event which we hope will be the first of many for us and encour­age oth­er fam­i­ly farms to run LOFS events of a sim­i­lar low key nature in the future.”

Tim Bar­ton, Bre­wood Park Farm, Staffordshire

30 vis­i­tors; 1^st LOFS event

Our LOFS was a great suc­cess and we enjoyed it too. We had con­sid­ered host­ing a LOFS before, but weren’t sure how pop­u­lar it would be as we don’t have live­stock. We opt­ed for a small tick­et only event, lim­it­ed to 30 vis­i­tors. We only pro­mot­ed on local vil­lage Face­book Groups and soon filled our 30 places, and had a wait­ing list! We opt­ed to have 3 themes and divid­ed vis­i­tors into 3 groups which rotat­ed around each group:

• Farm machin­ery (trac­tors, baler, drill & com­bine) and re-gen­er­a­tive agriculture
• Bird han­dling with our local bird ring­ing group
• Refresh­ments and dis­cus­sion about crops and food pro­duc­tion – with activ­i­ties such as match­ing grains to food products.

I would def­i­nite­ly encour­age peo­ple to take part next year. About half the group hadn’t been to a farm before, and they left with a greater under­stand­ing about how we pro­duce food in an envi­ron­men­tal­ly respon­si­ble way. Tick­et­ing means it is eas­i­er to man­age on the day — but needs a bit more prep before hand.

Hazel Andrew, Awnells Farm, Herefordshire

350 vis­i­tors; 8^th LOFS event

“We love show­ing the pub­lic our prizewin­ning Here­ford­shire cat­tle. The pub­lic are too far removed from where our food comes from. Every­body has lost the rea­son for farm­ing. They think the coun­try­side is a play­ground. We love hav­ing school chil­dren come to vis­it and learn­ing, but we’ve realised over the years that adults need to learn as well. That’s why we’ve tak­en part in LEAF Open Farm Sun­day for the past eight years.”

Hamish Ben­bor­ough, Den­nings Down Farm, Devon

100 vis­i­tors; 4^th LOFS event

“We were so lucky with the weath­er. We had a great day, with a steady trick­le — about a hun­dred in total. Many thanks for all your help and encour­age­ment from LEAF.

« ENDS »

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion, please con­tact Jane Craigie Marketing:
Susan­nah Pâté susannah@​janecraigie.​com or 07841 194 897

Rebec­ca Dawes ofsrc.​scotland@​gmail.​com

Editor’s notes:

For up-to-date cam­paign infor­ma­tion, like us on Face­book http://​www​.face​book​.com/​L​E​A​F​o​p​e​n​f​a​r​m​s​unday, or fol­low us on Twit­ter www​.twit​ter​.com/​o​p​e​n​f​a​r​m​s​unday.

For more infor­ma­tion vis­it www​.farm​sun​day​.org. To keep up to date on Twit­ter fol­low @OpenFarmSunday, @LEAF_Farming and @AnnabelOFS

Editor’s 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 2022 will take place on Sun­day 12^th June 2022 and on 11^th June 2023.
• 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.

LEAF is a reg­is­tered char­i­ty (No. 1045781) and a com­pa­ny lim­it­ed by guar­an­tee reg­is­tered in Eng­land (No. 3035047).