Ticketed farm walk for 60 people

Farm­ing for four gen­er­a­tions, the Flo­rey fam­i­ly are strong advo­cates for Open Farm Sun­day, host­ing their first OFS event near­ly eight years ago. 

“We are real­ly proud of the way we look after our ani­mals and feel quite lucky to be respon­si­ble for the upkeep and care of our small area of West Oxford­shire. I know it is often said but we are cus­to­di­ans of the coun­try­side, and we want to share that with peo­ple from both rur­al and urban back­grounds, by giv­ing them the oppor­tu­ni­ty to come and see what we are doing.

“As farm­ers, we often feel that infor­ma­tion is mis­com­mu­ni­cat­ed. It is our respon­si­bil­i­ty to bust the myths and share facts that demon­strate how farm­ing is not dam­ag­ing the plan­et. The best way to do this is to invite peo­ple to come and see us, ask their ques­tions and be open to con­ver­sa­tions. Through Open Farm Sun­day, we have wel­comed indi­vid­u­als with all dietary pref­er­ences includ­ing veg­e­tar­i­ans and veg­ans. We don’t shy away from talk­ing about meat, but we do acknowl­edge their choic­es and we don’t change our sto­ry. They have come to see what we do, and we have noth­ing to hide.”

For James, know­ing you are part of an indus­try-wide event is a real draw as well as know­ing you have full con­trol to man­age your own event, so it suits you and your farm­ing setup. 

“Last year we wel­comed 60 vis­i­tors to the farm, and our event cen­tered around a farm walk. We met in the yard, and had a barn open as a meet­ing point, where we set up some infor­ma­tion such as the free posters we got from Open Farm Sun­day. We also had some machin­ery on dis­play and a few pet lambs and a calf, so there was some­thing for peo­ple to see when they arrived.

“We used a book­ing sys­tem, so we knew who to expect, and we reg­is­tered every­one when they arrived. Our event pro­mo­tion makes it clear the vis­it involves a 2 to 3‑mile walk, and that we will take our time, stop­ping at var­i­ous points so they can ask questions. 

“We vis­it­ed the cat­tle and sheep graz­ing, went to see the pollen and nec­tar plots, head­ed down towards the riv­er to see the mead­ows, walked through the arable crops grow­ing and high­light­ed the birds and wildlife on the farm. We find it is the best way to show­case what we are doing, from an envi­ron­men­tal point of view but also food production.”

“It is very con­ver­sa­tion­al, and we real­ly make what we already have on farm work for us. We find many of our vis­i­tors think they know a lot about farm­ing, but they go away amazed by how much we do and how we man­age all the dif­fer­ent enter­pris­es with just our small team.”

“We are not an open farm park or pub­lic attrac­tion; we don’t try to be some­thing we are not and I think this is real­ly impor­tant. We want to give vis­i­tors a good insight into what we do, in a way they will under­stand. For exam­ple, we invite chil­dren to step into the cat­tle han­dling sys­tem to show them how many peo­ple we need to equal the same weight as one of our cows, which always goes down real­ly well.”

Whilst James and Fiona are now well versed in host­ing Open Farm Sun­day, when they first took part they were slight­ly daunt­ed by the health and safe­ty, how­ev­er, after com­plet­ing the paper­work, they realised it was very manageable. 

“Once we got the tem­plate for our risk assess­ment, we find it easy to adapt and tai­lor it each year, depend­ing on what we were offer­ing. We use real­ly good sig­nage and tape-off areas we feel are high risk, like the bale stacks. We also keep every­one togeth­er as one group so they don’t won­der off and stay with our team.

“Any wor­ries we did have about host­ing the event, are imme­di­ate­ly out­weighed by the oppor­tu­ni­ty it gives you to com­mu­ni­cate and inter­act with the pub­lic. I think as farm­ers it is very easy to com­plain that con­sumers have no idea what we do or the work that goes into farm­ing, but when there is some­thing like Open Farm Sun­day, that pro­vides farm­ers with lots of free tem­plates and resources, there is no point com­plain­ing if we are not mak­ing the most of what is avail­able to impact change.”

Vis­it www​.farm​sun​day​.org to find out how you can get involved and host your own event. 

James’s top tips for some­one tak­ing part for the first time:

• Start off small.
• Have a clear plan of what you want to achieve on the day and what you want to show visitors.
• Include a few inter­ac­tive activ­i­ties and allow time for peo­ple to ask questions.
• Don’t over­stretch your­self, work with what you have on the farm.
• Man­age your num­bers by using the OFS book­ing system.
• Ask friends and fam­i­ly to help out on the day.
• Utilise the resources and net­work avail­able through Open Farm Sunday.