Mixed farm

Com­mu­ni­ty Connections 

For us, a big part of decid­ing to take part in Open Farm Sun­day was to con­nect with our local com­mu­ni­ty. Although we live in a rur­al area, many peo­ple are unaware of what goes on in the fields around them. With­out a vil­lage shop or pub, there is no nat­ur­al place for peo­ple to con­vene. So, Open Farm Sun­day was a great oppor­tu­ni­ty for us to cre­ate an event for the whole com­mu­ni­ty and bring them clos­er to farming. 

Our biggest con­cern was whether peo­ple would actu­al­ly come along! Liv­ing in rur­al West Wales, we thought that every­one would have a con­nec­tion with farm­ing so why would they come to a farm open day! Being a pas­tur­al farm, we also won­dered whether we would have enough to show peo­ple. How wrong we were! We spoke to lots of peo­ple before­hand who assured us that it didn’t mat­ter how basic the day was, for vis­i­tors it was some­thing dif­fer­ent to do. So, we decid­ed to take the plunge and I am so glad we did. 

Shar­ing our Story 

We want­ed to show the real­i­ties of run­ning a small, mixed farm. We put on milk­ing demon­stra­tions, a sta­t­ic machin­ery dis­play, had a sim­ple nature table with binoc­u­lars for peo­ple to use, vis­i­tors were also able to get close to our sheep and calves and sit on a trac­tor – a huge hit with both chil­dren and parents! 

Help­ing peo­ple make the con­nec­tion between what hap­pens on a mixed farm in West Wales and what they see on the super­mar­ket shelves, was a big moti­va­tion for get­ting involved in Open Farm Sun­day. As we sup­ply our milk to Arla, we had an Arla tast­ing table just out­side the milk­ing par­lour so when vis­i­tors had seen the cows being milked, they could taste some of the prod­ucts that our milk is turned into! 

We also ran a small café and cooked pan­cakes, so peo­ple could see the raw ingre­di­ents and taste the fin­ished prod­uct – again, a real­ly pow­er­ful way to help peo­ple make that vital food and farm­ing link. 

Fly­ing the flag for British Agriculture 

For us, doing Open Farm Sun­day was all about reach­ing out to our local com­mu­ni­ty and that is exact­ly what it has enabled us to do. Hand deliv­er­ing the invi­ta­tions, mak­ing con­tact with neigh­bours and telling them about our event was real­ly reward­ing. I think know­ing that we were putting on a free com­mu­ni­ty event sent out a very pow­er­ful mes­sage. Farm­ing neigh­bours who attend­ed also said how much they val­ued see­ing peo­ple they didn’t have reg­u­lar con­tact with. This is so impor­tant in a small rur­al community. 

There were many spe­cial moments on the day. See­ing people’s faces light up when they were with the ani­mals and expe­ri­enc­ing their sense of won­der at what we do was quite mem­o­rable. One lit­tle girl asked whether dol­phins lived in the slur­ry tank — a strong reminder that even in rur­al areas, there is a real need to raise aware­ness of farm­ing and food production. 

Our local com­mu­ni­ty now know us, we’re no longer those peo­ple just sit­ting in the trac­tor! They have an under­stand­ing of what we do, what’s going on in the fields, how much we prize ani­mal health and wel­fare, the lev­el of tech­nol­o­gy on the farm, know what I am doing when they see me walk­ing around with the plate meter. We have an ongo­ing rela­tion­ship with them – all year round. It has def­i­nite­ly giv­en us ​‘Brown­ie points’ for those dif­fi­cult times in the year when we are spread­ing slur­ry on a Sun­day afternoon! 

Lessons Learnt

Over­all every­one that came had a real­ly good day out and we will def­i­nite­ly be get­ting involved each year. We’re now turn­ing our minds to what we could do dif­fer­ent­ly next time. Here’s our five key lessons: 

• Brief­ing helpers – it is essen­tial that key peo­ple are avail­able to answer ques­tions; brief­ing them thor­ough­ly before­hand on what you expect on the day and the key mes­sages you want to con­vey to vis­i­tors is so important. 
• Timed Tours – every­one needs to go home hav­ing had their ques­tions answered so I would arrange tours for des­ig­nat­ed times and make sure vis­i­tors got some one-to-one time with me and my part­ner as we are the ones that know the sto­ry of this farm. 
• Track­ing num­bers – we found it hard to keep track of exact vis­i­tor num­bers as the farm is so open — some peo­ple were able to sneak in! We opened between 12 and 4:30pm and esti­mate we had 120 vis­i­tors. Next time, we will keep a bet­ter track of vis­i­tor num­bers by cre­at­ing a bot­tle neck at the entrance and reg­is­ter­ing vis­i­tors on arrival. 
• Fresh­en it up – vis­i­tors need to be enticed to vis­it again so it’s good to look at ways to keep your event fresh by putting on new activ­i­ties as well as retain­ing some core fea­tures. Next time, we’re look­ing at run­ning a welly wang­ing com­pe­ti­tion and brin­ing in a local bak­ing school to make dough and tell the grain to bread journey. 
• Pho­tog­ra­phy – take lots of pho­tographs and del­e­gate this job to some­one spe­cif­ic so it happens. 

Open Farm Sun­day pro­vides a fan­tas­tic oppor­tu­ni­ty to give back to your com­mu­ni­ty and what bet­ter excuse to give the farm a deep clean and have a dead­line to work to. Get involved, enjoy it and fly the flag for British Agriculture!