With not enough indi­vid­u­als work­ing in the indus­try to meet the grow­ing demand for jobs, it is more impor­tant than ever that the sec­tor demon­strates the wide and diverse range of careers avail­able asso­ci­at­ed with agri­cul­ture. LEAF (Link­ing Envi­ron­ment And Farm­ing) Open Farm Sun­day is one organ­i­sa­tion that is mak­ing a sig­nif­i­cant­ly pos­i­tive impact.

In 2022, almost half (49%) of vis­i­tors said an indi­vid­ual with­in their group was inspired to con­sid­er a career in farm­ing after attend­ing a LEAF Open Farm Sun­day (LOFS) event. With 20% of vis­i­tors hav­ing nev­er vis­it­ed a farm before, and vis­i­tors span­ning both rur­al and urban areas, the ini­tia­tive is help­ing to raise aware­ness and attract new peo­ple to the indus­try, some of whom already have a small con­nec­tion to farm­ing but may not have con­sid­ered it as a long-term career. 

Han­nah Dar­by from Roughs Farm in Hunt­ing­don, Cam­bridgeshire vol­un­teered at a LOFS event host­ed by Tom Mar­tin, at Vil­lage Farm, in 2017. A chance encounter with 16-year-old Sam Baynes opened up a con­ver­sa­tion about future employ­ment, and now six years on, he is an inte­gral part of the 800-acre arable farm­ing operation. 

Sam had always had a watch­ful eye on farm­ing, occa­sion­al­ly vis­it­ing his uncle’s farm in Cam­bridgeshire but, after com­plet­ing school, he wasn’t quite sure what came next. 

“I remem­ber sit­ting in a com­bine har­vester as a kid and it sparked an inter­est in farm­ing. I would often look out of my win­dow to try and see what they were doing in the field. When I was old enough to dri­ve, I man­aged to get some work expe­ri­ence turn­ing hay in an old Ford 4000 trac­tor that had no air con­di­tion­ing, but I still had no plan what I was going to do with my future. 

“So, I reg­is­tered to attend Shut­tle­worth Col­lege [part of Bed­ford Col­lege] to do a gen­er­al agri­cul­tur­al course which felt like an easy next step after school.”

Sam had gone along to the LOFS day after a friend, who worked at the farm, had asked for his help mon­i­tor­ing some machin­ery and trac­tors, which were on dis­play for vis­i­tors. Han­nah noticed Sam help­ing and curios­i­ty got the bet­ter of her. 

“We were pack­ing up at the end of the day and I spot­ted Sam sit­ting qui­et­ly on the back of a cul­ti­va­tor. I was intrigued so I went over to ask him what he was doing. He was real­ly shy but chat­ted a lit­tle about what he was up to and his plans for col­lege, and it led to us dis­cussing some work experience.

“We have always had a strong fam­i­ly his­to­ry of work­ing with stu­dents. It was some­thing my dad was very pas­sion­ate about, and my uncle and I have con­tin­ued that lega­cy, ensur­ing we sup­port the next gen­er­a­tion. How­ev­er, with a num­ber of changes at the farm in 2017, we hadn’t had a stu­dent for a while, but it was some­thing we had start­ed to think about again.”

A week after the LOFS event, Sam got a phone call from Han­nah, some­thing that had come as a nice sur­prise as they hadn’t exchanged num­bers at the event, and his sum­mer work expe­ri­ence commenced. 

Sam quick­ly realised how much he enjoyed work­ing on the farm, and learn­ing hands-on so he plucked up the courage to ask Han­nah if she would con­sid­er sup­port­ing an appren­tice­ship, which would allow him to remain work­ing on the farm beyond the sum­mer whilst also still gain­ing a qual­i­fi­ca­tion from the college. 

“Not long after I start­ed with Han­nah, I start­ed to get a bit more clar­i­ty about what I want­ed to do with my future and work­ing on the farm, com­plet­ing a mixed range of jobs, real­ly appealed. But I also want­ed to learn all the the­o­ry and I was mind­ful I had a place at college. 

“Shut­tle­worth was great, they allowed me to trans­fer to the appren­tice­ship and I have since worked with amaz­ing peo­ple, gain­ing lots of prac­ti­cal expe­ri­ence as well as my own free­dom to do my own job and gain responsibility. 

“It has helped increase my con­fi­dence and my inter­est in learn­ing about more than just the basic prin­ci­ples that I would have cov­ered in the class­room. I real­ly want to under­stand what we are doing and why.”

Through his train­ing and sup­port from Han­nah, Sam is involved in all aspects of grow­ing the crops from drilling and spray­ing to har­vest­ing and machin­ery main­te­nance. This has released Han­nah so she can con­cen­trate more on the man­age­ment of the farm, which has result­ed in the busi­ness expand­ing and look­ing at new opportunities. 

“We have a bril­liant team of four, and when Sam joined it brought a new injec­tion of ener­gy as it always does when you bring in a fresh per­spec­tive. He was keen to learn, and it was evi­dent ear­ly on that he was going to be very will­ing and able as he was lis­ten­ing and absorb­ing everything. 

“It gave the team reas­sur­ance that we could give him more respon­si­bil­i­ty, which, when we then looked at the future of the busi­ness, pro­vid­ed us with cer­tain­ty that we had a strong team to take on more.”

Han­nah has recent­ly pur­chased some addi­tion­al land, expand­ed their stew­ard­ship and ren­o­vat­ed two prop­er­ties, built in 1865, con­vert­ing them into hol­i­day cot­tages, col­lec­tive­ly sleep­ing 14 guests at Roughs Farm Retreats. 

This has not only brought a new income stream into the busi­ness, it has allowed Han­nah and Sam the oppor­tu­ni­ty to show­case the farm­ing sto­ry fur­ther to their farm vis­i­tors, and they are con­sid­er­ing their own LOFS event in the future. 

“I have so much to thank LEAF Open Farm Sun­day for. Not only did it allow me to speak to vis­i­tors and give me some ideas for doing some­thing on my own farm, it also gave me a chance to look at the future and see what more we could do by recruit­ing the right people. 

“I love farm­ing and all it brings, meet­ing Sam and see­ing how enthu­si­as­tic he is, has increased my enjoy­ment. It gave all the exist­ing team a lift whilst also keep­ing us on our toes!