Open Farm Sunday 2014 where will you visit?

I know you’ll all probably hate me for this post. Half term isn’t even here yet but I’m asking you to check your diaries for June 8^th.

You see it is a subject pretty close to my heart.

June 8^th is Open Farm Sunday.

It is a day where ordinary people who may have never set foot on a farm, can find out where their nearest participating farm is and call in.

Farmers, like my husband, produce more than half of all food consumed in Britain, from fresh foods like milk, cheese, meat, fruit and vegetables, to store cupboard staples such as breakfast cereals, flour, rapeseed oil and eggs. Add to that the vital work farmers do to manage the countryside, and shouldn’t we all be celebrating British food and farming?

The day is organised by LEAF (Linking Environment And Farming) and Open Farm Sunday is your chance to meet farmers and find out for yourself how your food is produced and what it takes to look after the countryside.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to persuade Hubster to open our gates up just yet but don’t think I’ll be sat here thinking about the fun everyone else is having.

No. I’ve already visited the website and found where my nearest participating farm is.

The one I’m going to is called Red Bank Farm and, before I met Hubster, it had been the only farm I had ever set foot on, as part of a school trip when I was about ten.

I remember the farmer asking if anyone wanted to hold a piglet and I practically lept to the front and grabbed this squealing little pink thing.

If only I’d known then that I would living on a farm years later.

To say farmers are a funny lot is a bit of an understatement if you ask me, so the fact that they are even opening up their gates at all is an achievement in my book.

Open Farm Sunday offers an informative and enjoyable day out for everyone, young and old alike but I think it is especially important for children.

A survey conducted last year by the British Nutrition Foundation, worryingly found that almost a third of UK primary pupils think cheese is made from plants and a quarter think fish fingers come from chicken or pigs. How scary is that?

I really believe that I order to foster a healthy relationship with food, children need to be able to associate the roast chicken on a Sunday or the ham in their sandwich with the animal it came from.

I don’t want you to think I am preaching at you from my ivory tower. I know Boo and I are lucky to live on a farm but Sunday, June 8^th, is everyone’s chance to go and see what it’s like to be a farmer for a day.

For more information, visit: www.farmsunday.org.

You can also join in the Open Farm Sunday conversation on Twitter by using @openfarmsunday or #OFS in all your tweets.

*I received no compensation for this post.