Open Farm's £4.3m value to the industry

SET up five years ago to increase interest in Britain's farming industries, Open Farm Sunday is now attracting a bigger audience than the Glastonbury festival, with attendance at this year's event having been more than 180,000.

A total of 184,000 members of the public travelled to UK farms this summer, including 13,100 in Yorkshire – a rise of 21 per cent for the county, with the whole scheme worth an estimated 4.3m to the farming industry.

Open Farm Sunday sees the general public invited on to farms to learn about how food is produced and how farms operate. The initiative was launched by the Linking Environment and Farming (LEAF) organisation and has brought more than 750,000 people onto British farms in its short history.

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Caroline Drummond, LEAF's chief executive, said: "In its five-year history this valuable industry initiative has helped around three-quarters of a million people see how their food is grown, its links with nature and why farms matter.

"Open Farm Sunday does this through fun and engaging activities put on by farmers who share a passion for farming and a desire to show people how their food is produced.

"This commitment from the hundreds of farmers and thousands of others who help out at events, delivers an initiative that is worth around 4.3m a year to the food and farming industry. We are immensely grateful to all those who helped make the 2010 event such a success."

Open Farm Sunday was supported by a total of 6,150 people in the farming industry and rural community, who helped staff and volunteer on the 420 farms that opened up this year. The event's growing importance was perhaps best underscored by the fact that three Defra ministers were also in attendance.

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As well as raising awareness of where food and drink comes from, and highlighting the important environmental work that farmers do, the event appears to have made a difference too to participating farms in terms of their business.

A total of 80 per cent of host farmers said that OFS brings tangible benefits to their business and more families visited a farm than ever before – a key target for LEAF, as well as greater visitor levels coming from towns and cities.

However the majority of visitors are still from the farm's local community

Open Farm Sunday manager Tom Allen-Stevens said: "For host farmers it is a day that boosts family and staff morale, and there is a wonderful sense of achievement in delivering a genuinely worthwhile initiative."

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"It was really heartening to see the strong encouragement Defra and Natural England gave all their staff to visit farms or help out at events and is a great indication of the importance Government gives to reconnecting the public with farming."

Farms wishing to register for next year's event on June 12 will be able to do so in the New Year at www.farmsunday.org

CW 16/10/10

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