LEAF Open Farm Sun­day Man­ag­er, Annabel Shack­le­ton head­ed up to Scot­land recent­ly to NFU Scotland’s annu­al con­fer­ence, and joined NFU con­fer­ence online. Here she tells us more about some of the key mes­sages, pri­or­i­ties and inspir­ing conversations…

It was a tremen­dous priv­i­lege to attend this year’s NFU Scot­land annu­al con­fer­ence in per­son and NFU con­fer­ence online. There con­tin­ues to be a moun­tain of chal­lenges that farm­ers face to feed a chang­ing world, but Britain is blessed with some awe­some farm­ers! Resource­ful. Resilient. Util­is­ing sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, data and demon­stra­tion to pro­duce fab­u­lous food, fibre and ener­gy. Whilst also enhanc­ing the envi­ron­ment, boost­ing bio­di­ver­si­ty, and many are also diver­si­fy­ing with flare! The farm­ing sto­ries have been inspiring.

The need to engage 

For me what shone through the pre­sen­ta­tions and con­ver­sa­tions is the need to engage with our cus­tomers – consumers.

We heard that Minette Bat­ters, NFU Pres­i­dent, said: ​“What we need to be much bet­ter at is pre­sent­ing a pos­i­tive sto­ry of what we do.”

Whilst Tom Brad­shaw, NFU Deputy Pres­i­dent, talked about the need for farm­ers to speak direct with the pub­lic: ​“We need to lis­ten to con­sumers to see what they want.” 

Ash Ami­rah­ma­di, man­ag­ing direc­tor of Arla Foods UK in his inspir­ing pre­sen­ta­tion about how farm­ers need to lead the agen­da on the chal­lenge of feed­ing a glob­al pop­u­la­tion whilst not harm­ing the plan­et, said: ​“con­sumers get it; they under­stand it; but they don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly know what they can do to help the issue with cli­mate change — but its high on their priorities.” 

He added: ​“We need to bring the on-farm agen­da to life for con­sumers — in a way that they under­stand and can engage with.”

“The trick is to be able to talk about what we do in a way that engages con­sumers and makes them will­ing­ly want to buy more of our prod­ucts and pay more for our prod­ucts as well.”

Assad Mal­ic from pub and hote­lier group, Greene King pre­sent­ed results from a recent sur­vey of 2000 of their cus­tomers: ​“After cost of liv­ing – cli­mate change and men­tal well­be­ing were their biggest concerns.” 

Inspir­ing future generations 

In Glas­gow ear­li­er in Feb­ru­ary, Mar­tin Kennedy, NFU Scot­land Pres­i­dent and sup­port­er of LEAF Open Farm Sun­day said loud and proud how ​“inspir­ing the next gen­er­a­tion” was a core pil­lar of their work. Our 2022 LOFS vis­i­tor sur­vey showed that 49% of vis­i­tors said that the farm vis­it had inspired some­one in their group to con­sid­er a career in farming.

Boost­ing agritourism

Kay Wil­son, Lennox of Lomond Farm, whose fam­i­ly have been farm­ing north of Glas­gow for 270 years, talked about how out of neces­si­ty their farm has embraced agri­tourism to gen­er­ate addi­tion­al income but also it has enhanced their well­be­ing. The oppor­tu­ni­ty to step back for just one hour a week to talk with a small group of pay­ing vis­i­tors about their farm, giv­ing them a mini expe­ri­ence of Scot­tish farm­ing was pos­i­tive for all involved: the family’s well­be­ing and the tourists love it! As she said: ​“you don’t have to put on a lav­ish event. The pub­lic just love to meet a farmer, to expe­ri­ence being on a farm, to see day to day farm­ing activ­i­ties.” Her fam­i­ly offer these paid-for expe­ri­ences through­out the year, but on LEAF Open Farm Sun­day they look to open for free to give the local com­mu­ni­ty the oppor­tu­ni­ty to see what they are doing on farm.

Diver­si­fy­ing with flare!

For farm­ers con­sid­er­ing diver­si­fy­ing LOFS is a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to do mar­ket research and find out what the pub­lic want. For farm­ers already with a diver­si­fi­ca­tion LOFS can help you to reach new audi­ences, build your cus­tomer data­base and gen­er­ate addi­tion­al income.

Hun­gry for knowledge

Dr Food, D. David Hugh­es reit­er­at­ed how the pub­lic are hun­gry to know the sto­ry behind their food. Trust in British farm­ing is high, but the pub­lic want to know what they can do to sup­port farmers.

LEAF Open Farm Sun­day, farming’s annu­al open day, is a tried and test­ed way to show­case all that farm­ers deliv­er and research shows it achieves so much:

• 98% of LOFS vis­i­tors said they now have a bet­ter under­stand­ing of what​‘sus­tain­ably pro­duced’ food means
• 96% said they have a greater appre­ci­a­tion for, and feel more con­nect­ed to farming
• 72% of vis­i­tors said that they feel our indus­try is doing some­thing to help com­bat cli­mate change.

Let’s con­tin­ue to wel­come the pub­lic onto our farms 

The LOFS team have the expe­ri­ence, infor­ma­tion and ideas to help all farm­ers deliv­er engag­ing on-farm events for the pub­lic and we look for­ward to see­ing you at this year’s LOFS farmer meet­ings – in per­son or online.

To all our LEAF Open Farm Sun­day host farm­ers: let’s con­tin­ue to wel­come the pub­lic onto farm for farming’s annu­al open day. Let’s show lead­er­ship and demon­strate the amaz­ing work you are doing for the envi­ron­ment, boost­ing wildlife and bio­di­ver­si­ty, whilst pro­duc­ing food, fibre and ener­gy. Togeth­er let’s show­case British farm­ing in June 2023.

Reg­is­ter to take part in LEAF Open Farm Sun­day on the 11^th June here.