LEAF Open Farm Sunday Search

Leigh and Donya Donger, Peacock Farm

Arable farmers Leigh and Donya Donger, who farm 1700 acres of oilseed rape, beans, barley and wheat at Peacock Farm near Muston in Leicestershire, are opening their farm again this year after the success of their first Open Farm Sunday event in 2022.

Medium sized event

Donya has always felt pas­sion­ate about shar­ing the farm­ing sto­ry with chil­dren, speak­ing in schools, WI groups and organ­is­ing farm vis­its for the Scouts. She per­suad­ed her hus­band to expand the audi­ence to and show­case, in par­tic­u­lar, arable farming: 

We want­ed to show peo­ple that there’s so much more than meets the eye with arable farm­ing. Clarkson’s Farm has been real­ly good for illus­trat­ing this, and there’s so much to say about it. Farm­ing is not just about animals. 

Vis­i­tors were real­ly inter­est­ed in find­ing out how and why we are doing what we do, why we can’t be price set­ters with com­modi­ties, why organ­ic is not the answer for every­thing, and how we are farm­ing with nature. We know our back gar­den’ bet­ter than any­one. We’re seek­ing to enhance it and not destroy it as is often sug­gest­ed on TV and in the media.”

A machin­ery dis­play — of the com­bine, drill, cul­ti­va­tor and sprayer — and farm tours were both pop­u­lar and had huge Insta­gram-appeal. A let­ter trail around the farm to cre­ate an ana­gram kept chil­dren active, while a straw bale next to a hay bale proved a very effec­tive way to explain the dif­fer­ence and what each is used for, as was a table dis­play of seeds show­ing the crop they grow into and what food they make.

We hired the dis­trict trail­er from the NFU, which was inex­pen­sive and was the most pop­u­lar part of the day. Anoth­er top tip is to invite oth­er local farm­ers to help – their knowl­edge makes all the dif­fer­ence to vis­i­tors’ experience.”

An agron­o­mist explained the dif­fer­ent inputs for each crop, and they showed how they used RTK and GPS to show the accu­ra­cy deployed to avoid unnec­es­sary fer­tilis­er, time or fuel use. 

Donya, who became a bee­keep­er 10 years ago, inter­est­ed in how bees could enhance crop yields, also invit­ed the local bee­keep­ing group. They brought a live obser­va­tion hive to explain the work of pol­li­na­tors and oth­er envi­ron­men­tal impacts for insects on the farm, which sits in the mid­dle of the Vale of Belvoir, and is home to beau­ti­ful flo­ra and birdlife. They also ran a cof­fee shop to help cov­er some event costs.

The Donger fam­i­ly, who also sell their own rape­seed oil, hon­ey and fruit vine­gars, were delight­ed with the turnout:

Every per­son should know where food comes from, to have a chance to open their minds and expe­ri­ence it. It’s amaz­ing to be able to speak to all man­ner of folk, adults as much as chil­dren, and engage them with our industry.”

Keen to take part and host an event this year? Reg­is­ter your event here.

Ques­tions? Con­tact the Open Farm Sun­day team: [email protected] or phone 07912 463151



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