Medium sized event, Cumbria

The spot­light is on British Agri­cul­ture and with a lot of fake news and neg­a­tiv­i­ty towards our indus­try, Open Farm Sun­day is an ide­al oppor­tu­ni­ty to show the pos­i­tives of how live­stock pro­duc­tion can ben­e­fit both wildlife habi­tat and the envi­ron­ment whilst at the same time pro­duc­ing food to some of the high­est wel­fare standards.

We real­ly need to have dis­cus­sions with vis­i­tors about these key top­ics and get their opin­ions as well as say­ing ours. We have cre­at­ed a visu­al jig­saw which demon­strates how live­stock farm­ing, food pro­duc­tion, healthy soil, manure, grass, cli­mate and envi­ron­ment, wildlife habi­tat, local com­mu­ni­ties all have an impor­tant role to play in the countryside.

Talk­ing with the pub­lic is well out of Martin’s com­fort zone, but as he explains after host­ing six Open Farm Sun­day events it is get­ting eas­i­er each year: 

“I used to talk with vis­i­tors at a lev­el I thought they’d under­stand, but, with­out being dis­re­spect­ful, you real­ly do need to take con­ver­sa­tions down to a very basic lev­el as you’ll be sur­prised how lit­tle peo­ple know. If you’re not con­fi­dent speak­ing with strangers, then invite oth­ers to help. This year we’re invit­ing a cou­ple of vets – they won’t be going into the details of BVD, but they’ll be talk­ing sim­ply about ani­mal wel­fare and why we need to vac­ci­nate our live­stock, mak­ing the link with Covid vac­ci­na­tions so its rel­e­vant to visitors.”

Arlene who works in edu­ca­tion uses her knowl­edge to engage with chil­dren pro­vid­ing them with the oppor­tu­ni­ties to take part in fun activ­i­ties such as quizzes, guess which fleece is off which sheep, plus make use of the free resources pro­vid­ed by the sponsors.

We are proud to be pro­fes­sion­al farm­ers, proud of our live­stock and the way it is pro­duced, so why not take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to show case it to the great British pub­lic for them to make their own informed decisions.