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