The online research, con­duct­ed in Octo­ber 2019, revealed 91% of respon­dents felt it is more impor­tant than ever for farm­ers to open their farms to the pub­lic. The poll attract­ed 522 respons­es from both con­sumers and indus­try with com­ments including:

• “As a per­son brought up on a coun­cil estate in a city, it wasn’t until I moved away to rur­al set­tings did I appre­ci­ate our coun­try­side.” (a consumer) 
• “It is very impor­tant for day-to-day engage­ment between farm­ers and pub­lic.” (a consumer). 
• “From all the thou­sands of vis­i­tors over the last 20 years, the most com­mon com­ment is an admi­ra­tion of how com­plex and sci­en­tif­ic agri­cul­ture / land man­age­ment is and how much peo­ple appre­ci­ate what we do.” (a farmer)

Com­ment­ing on the find­ings, Annabel Shack­le­ton, LEAF Open Farm Sun­day Man­ag­er said: ​“The poll results sup­port the find­ings from our 2019 vis­i­tor impact sur­vey which found 93% of con­sumers feel more con­nect­ed to the farm­ers who pro­duce their food after vis­it­ing a farm on LEAF Open Farm Sun­day, an increase of 7% from 2018.

She added: ​“The gen­er­al pub­lic are increas­ing­ly more curi­ous and inter­est­ed in how their food is grown and what farm­ers are doing to pro­tect and enhance the coun­try­side. By offer­ing them the oppor­tu­ni­ty to vis­it a farm, we can dis­pel myths and pro­vide con­sumers with the con­fi­dence and rea­sons to buy British produce.”

The research also found 97% of vis­i­tors were more appre­cia­tive of the work farm­ers do (92% in 2018) with 92% report­ing they have a bet­ter under­stand­ing of the term ​“sus­tain­ably pro­duced food.”

One vis­i­tor com­ment­ed, ​“As par­ents and adults we need to be re-edu­cat­ed before it’s too late and yet anoth­er gen­er­a­tion grows up not know­ing how to respect and be grate­ful for what we have around us.”

Anoth­er added ​“LEAF Open Farm Sun­day made me more aware of farm­ing issues and how they affect the farm­ers’ livelihoods.”

With reg­is­tra­tion now open for 2020, LEAF Open Farm Sun­day is call­ing for farm­ers to reg­is­ter to take part on Sun­day 7^th June. 

“This year over a quar­ter of a mil­lion vis­i­tors went out on farm to see for them­selves the fan­tas­tic work farm­ers do as the cus­to­di­ans of our land and pro­duc­ers of safe nutri­tious food. With vis­i­tors cit­ing ​‘sto­ries about the farm’, ​‘ani­mal wel­fare’ and ​‘sus­tain­able farm­ing’ as key areas of inter­est, LEAF Open Farm Sun­day events are an extreme­ly pow­er­ful mar­ket­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty for the agri­cul­tur­al indus­try. We are very grate­ful to all those who take part and hope to encour­age more to get involved in 2020,” Mrs Shack­le­ton added.

All farm­ers can take part (you do not need to be a LEAF mem­ber) and you can host an event of any size from 20 peo­ple to sev­er­al hun­dred. Once reg­is­tered you can access a free tick­et­ing sys­tem to help man­age vis­i­tor num­bers along with a range of free resources and guid­ance from a team of LEAF Open Farm Sun­day co-ordinators.

A speak-out tool kit is avail­able for all sec­tors includ­ing arable, hor­ti­cul­ture, sheep, beef and dairy offer­ing some top tips on how to engage with vis­i­tors on farm.

All farm­ers con­sid­er­ing host­ing an event are encour­aged to take a look at the LEAF Open Farm Sun­day Infor­ma­tion Pack avail­able to down­load from www​.farm​sun​day​.org or to receive a copy by post, email your name and address to [email protected].

To reg­is­ter an event vis­it www​.farm​sun​day​.org. A hand­book will be sent to all farm­ers fol­low­ing reg­is­tra­tion which takes farm­ers through the key steps of organ­is­ing and host­ing an event. 

Click here to read the full press release.