Each with a back­ground in agri­cul­ture, their role is to encour­age and sup­port farm­ers look­ing to open. Ambas­sadors will share ideas to engage vis­i­tors and give prac­ti­cal infor­ma­tion on how to imple­ment safe and fun social dis­tanc­ing. This year LOFS is putting a strong focus on host­ing small, social­ly dis­tanced farm walks and talks to pro­vide an inti­mate insight to what hap­pens on farm. 

Annabel Shack­le­ton, LEAF Open Farm Sun­day Man­ag­er, commented,

“This year we are see­ing more peo­ple spend­ing time in the great out­doors and cook­ing from scratch, and there is a gen­uine inter­est across soci­ety to learn about where food comes from, the work farm­ers do and how the coun­try­side is managed. 

“With stay­ca­tions and trips to the coun­try­side increas­ing, we antic­i­pate there will be more peo­ple than ever want­i­ng to vis­it a farm this sum­mer, and we want to encour­age as many farm­ers as pos­si­ble to get involved with the con­fi­dence they can man­age their events safely. 

“In order to sup­port farm­ers, we felt it was impor­tant to estab­lish a strong net­work of ambas­sadors who have knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence in on-farm events and LEAF Open Farm Sun­day. We are very excit­ed to wel­come five new ambas­sadors, and wel­come back three for­mer co-ordi­na­tors, form­ing a strong net­work to sup­port any­one con­sid­er­ing tak­ing part.”

In addi­tion to being on hand to speak one-to-one with farm­ers, co-ordi­nat­ing region­al groups and pre­sent­ing at events, ambas­sadors are record­ing a series of short videos to help with the plan­ning of a LEAF Open Farm Sun­day event. Top­ics cov­ered include how to cre­ate a hand-wash­ing sta­tion, using a tick­et­ing sys­tem to man­age the num­ber and flow of vis­i­tors through to com­mu­ni­ca­tions sup­port and cre­ative activ­i­ty ideas. These will be avail­able on the LEAF web­site along­side a range of oth­er free resources. 

The new appoint­ments are:

Anne Mair-Chap­man (North East — Eng­land) farms with her fam­i­ly in North Northum­ber­land, includ­ing Suf­folk and Blue Tex­el Sheep.

Jon Myhill (East — Eng­land) is a crop-con­sul­tant, spe­cial­is­ing in ener­gy and for­age, and Direc­tor of MB Farm­ing Ltd, a con­tract­ing busi­ness in Nor­folk and Suffolk.

Mol­ly Bid­dell (South East — Eng­land) sup­ports her fam­i­ly-run diver­si­fied estate in Sur­rey as well as work­ing as a Pol­i­cy Ana­lyst in the Sav­ills Rur­al Research team.

Rona Amiss (South West — Eng­land) is a first gen­er­a­tion, ten­ant­ed farmer on the most souther­ly point of main­land UK and oper­ates her own farm diversification.

Helen Chap­pell (North West — Eng­land) runs a tra­di­tion­al mixed dairy and arable farm that has been in the fam­i­ly for 7 generations. 

They join Andy Guy (Mid­lands — Eng­land), Jamie McCoy (Wales) and Rebec­ca Dawes (Scot­land) who have all been reap­point­ed, hav­ing worked with LEAF Open Farm Sun­day for more than five years and each host­ing their own on-farm events. 

The ambas­sadors will be host­ing three online farmer meetings open to any­one inter­est­ed in tak­ing part in LOFS, or any expe­ri­enced hosts look­ing for new ideas. 

Dur­ing the short one-hour zoom call, there will be an oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet some of the new ambas­sadors, lis­ten to their top tips, answer ques­tions, shares ideas and speak to hosts. 

The ​“LEAF Open Farm Sun­day Top Tip” ses­sions will take place on:
(please click on the times to book your place)

Mon­day 10^th May, 19:30

Wednes­day 12^th May, 12:30

Fri­day 14^th May, 08:00

To find out more about the ambas­sadors or reg­is­ter to host an event, vis­it www​.farm​sun​day​.org.

LEAF Open Farm Sun­day will take place on 27^th June 2021. Fol­low­ing reg­is­tra­tion, hosts will receive a hand­book with guid­ance on how to ensure events com­ply with on-farm health and safe­ty regulations. 

/ENDS  

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion or to arrange an inter­view with one of the ambas­sadors please con­tact Rebec­ca Dawes or Susan­nah Pâté at Jane Craigie Mar­ket­ing on: rebecca@​janecraigie.​com or susannah@​janecraigie.​com or 07792 467730 

Edi­tors’ 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 2021 will take place on 27^th June 2021. Reg­is­ter to host at www​.farm​sun​day​.org. 
• In addi­tion, LEAF Online Farm Sun­day vir­tu­al farm tours will take place on Sun­day 28^th March and 26^th Sep­tem­ber, live on Face­book @LEAFOpenFarmSunday, and across Twit­ter @OpenFarmSunday and Insta­gram @OpenFarmSunday
• Spon­sors of LEAF Open Farm Sun­day include: AHDB, Arla Foods, Asda, BASF, Co-op, Defra, Farm­ers Week­ly, Fron­tier Agri­cul­ture, John Deere, Kellogg’s, LEAF Mar­que, NFU, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose. 

Read the full release here.