Tak­ing place on 9^th June 2024 the farm­ing industry’s annu­al open day aims to build trust, con­nect peo­ple, and pro­mote the val­ue of farm­ing with nature. 

Open Farm Sun­day Man­ag­er, Annabel Shack­le­ton, has a clear mes­sage to inspire even more farm­ers to host events this year:

“Every farm’s sto­ry deserves to be heard, appre­ci­at­ed, and under­stood. There’s a fan­tas­tic oppor­tu­ni­ty to engage more of the pub­lic with how their food is pro­duced and show our farm­ers as guardians of the earth. 

“Open­ing your gates and shar­ing your farm­ing sto­ries, opens the public’s mind to dis­cov­er the world of farm­ing. What­ev­er the scale or type of event you choose to organ­ise, every event mat­ters and every farm can ben­e­fit from being involved.

“The mag­ic hap­pens when vis­i­tors talk with farm­ers and see farm­ing first­hand. The con­ver­sa­tions have a last­ing pos­i­tive impact help­ing peo­ple to val­ue the work farm­ers do, the food they eat and to make more informed food choic­es. For some, it also inspires them to con­sid­er a career in farming.”

To active­ly sup­port farmer engage­ment, LEAF’s 2024 Open Farm Sun­day cam­paign launch­es with an on-farm event on 20^th March at Brag­bor­ough Hall in Northamptonshire. 

The free event includes work­shops and pre­sen­ta­tions from edu­ca­tion, PR spe­cial­ists, the OFS team and expe­ri­enced host farm­ers. It is a fan­tas­tic oppor­tu­ni­ty for farm­ers to upskill, meet expe­ri­enced hosts, share activ­i­ty ideas, pick up mar­ket­ing tips and resolve any con­cerns. Places are lim­it­ed (two free places per farm) and inter­est­ed par­ties can reg­is­ter to attend on the Open Farm Sun­day web­site.

The Open Farm Sun­day team is also hold­ing a series of online Zoom meet­ings between 27^th March and 22^nd May to pro­vide addi­tion­al sup­port across a range of top­ics. From ​‘where to start’ and ​‘man­ag­ing vis­i­tor num­bers’ through to ​‘last minute ques­tions and sup­port,’ these 30-minute pre­sen­ta­tions are fol­lowed by a 15-minute Q&A ses­sion. Vis­it the OFS web­site to register.

A flag­ship event in the farm­ing cal­en­dar, Open Farm Sun­day brings togeth­er organ­i­sa­tions from across the sup­ply chain to demon­strate what goes into pro­duc­ing nutri­tious food while farm­ing with nature and man­ag­ing the countryside. 

“We con­tin­ue to work close­ly with our spon­sors to reach their farm­ing net­works to ful­fil the ambi­tious tar­gets we’ve set our­selves for 2024. To achieve this, we have lots of free resources, guid­ance, and sup­port to make host­ing an Open Farm Sun­day event as straight­for­ward as possible. 

“This is an open invi­ta­tion to farm­ers to get involved. By work­ing togeth­er, we can real­ly show­case every aspect of British farm­ing,” con­cludes Mrs Shackleton.

Read the full report here