• 85% vis­i­tors report LOFS had increased their trust in British farming 
• 79% vis­i­tors learnt some­thing new about British food or farming
• 72% vis­i­tors said they felt the farm­ing indus­try is adapt­ing to help com­bat cli­mate change 
• 56% of vis­i­tors report the farm vis­it had pos­i­tive­ly changed their opin­ion of food pro­duc­tion or the farm­ing industry
• 49% of vis­i­tors said the vis­it had inspired some­one in their group to con­sid­er a career in farming 

LEAF Open Farm Sun­day has long been the industry’s annu­al open day, wel­com­ing hun­dreds of thou­sands of vis­i­tors on farm every year. This year’s event held last month was no excep­tion, attract­ing 175,000 vis­i­tors, 20% of whom had not vis­it­ed a farm before and over half (52%) com­ing from urban areas. 

Vis­i­tor feed­back shows the true impact of LEAF Open Farm Sun­day, with 72% of vis­i­tors report­ing feel­ing pos­i­tive about what the indus­try is doing to help com­bat the cli­mate change cri­sis. In addi­tion around half (49%) vis­i­tors said the vis­it had inspired some­one in their group to con­sid­er a career in farming.

LEAF (Link­ing Envi­ron­ment And Farm­ing) who have been man­ag­ing Open Farm Sun­day since it began in 2006, sup­port­ed over 250 farm­ers to open their gates from Jer­sey through to the Shet­land Isles for this year’s annu­al event, rais­ing aware­ness about food and farm­ing and offer­ing fun, inter­ac­tive and infor­ma­tive days on farm for fam­i­lies from all walks of life. 

The mes­sages shared by farm­ers res­onat­ed with vis­i­tors this year, with 95% rat­ing events as ​‘good’ or ​‘excel­lent’, 79% said they learned some­thing new about British food or farm­ing, and a fur­ther 85% report­ed that vis­it­ing a farm on LEAF Open Farm Sun­day had increased their trust in British farming. 

Annabel Shack­le­ton, LEAF Open Farm Sun­day Man­ag­er said: 

“We are thrilled with the huge­ly pos­i­tive impact that we have had this year. Farm­ers are being hit hard by labour short­ages and soar­ing costs, and the fact they have still jumped at the chance to show­case British farm­ing is tes­ta­ment to their com­mit­ment and pas­sion when it comes to shar­ing their sto­ry. We’ve once again demon­strat­ed the pow­er of LEAF Open Farm Sun­day in con­nect­ing peo­ple – from both urban and rur­al areas – to where their food comes from, how it is pro­duced and the farm­ers who make it all happen. 

It has been won­der­ful to read com­ments from vis­i­tors who care deeply about how their food is pro­duced and are inter­est­ed in wider issues around sus­tain­abil­i­ty, cli­mate change and ani­mal wel­fare. We’re delight­ed to hear the take home mes­sages this year have been par­tic­u­lar­ly strong sur­round­ing careers and cli­mate change. LEAF Open Farm Sun­day pro­vides a unique chan­nel through which we can all unite to show­case our indus­try, ignite inter­est from the pub­lic and har­ness their sup­port for our indus­try and all it delivers.

Our thanks to all the fan­tas­tic farm­ers who have tak­en part, all their helpers, the thou­sands of vis­i­tors who sup­port­ed them and to our spon­sors for their finan­cial and in-kind sup­port. As we progress our plans for next year’s LEAF Open Farm Sun­day on 11^th June 2023, we will con­tin­ue to adapt and respond to input from host farm­ers, spon­sors and stake­hold­ers to ensure its con­tin­ued pos­i­tive impact as Britain’s lead­ing on-farm pub­lic out­reach event.”

LEAF Open Farm Sun­day 2023 will take place on Sun­day 11^th June, reg­is­tra­tions are already open for farm­ers want­i­ng to take part: www​.farm​sun​day​.org

LEAF Open Farm Sun­day long-term prin­ci­pal spon­sors are: AHDB, Arla Foods, Asda, BASF, Co-op, Defra, Farm­ers Week­ly, Fron­tier Agri­cul­ture, John Deere, LEAF Mar­que, NFU, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose. 

LEAF Open Farm Sun­day, 12^th June 2022 in numbers:

• 251 farms
• 175,000 vis­i­tors
• 1 in five vis­i­tors had not vis­it­ed a farm before
• 52:48 urban:rural split
• 95% of vis­i­tors rat­ed events as good or excellent

You can read the full press release here.