Farmer Derek Wilkinson is keen to show city-dwellers the ways of the country. Kat Baldwyn reports.
Eight hundred workers descend on Dunnington Court Farm at the height of summer to pack and dispatch salad and vegetables to supermarkets.
For much of the year the work of the Alcester farm stays hidden, but for one Sunday in June it will be throwing open its doors to the public to give them an insight into what life on a farm is really like.
“It’s a two-way thing,” said 44-year-old Derek Wilknson, managing director of the 4,500-acre farm. “It gives the public a chance to see what we do and the chance to ask questions and raise any concerns they may have.
"But it also gives us the chance to show people what really happens on the farm. A lot of people in the area see us go by on our tractors but don’t know much, if anything, about the farm itself.”
This year will be the third year the farm, which grows salad, onions, dwarf beans, runner beans and peas among other things, has opened to the public as part of Open Farm Sunday organised by Linking Environment And Farming (LEAF) – a charity which helps farmers and producers to manage their farms efficiently and sustainably, producing good food with environmental care.
Last year, 184,000 visitors attended events on 420 farms to discover the story behind their food on the one day of the year farmers across the UK unite to open their farms to the public.
At Dunnington Court’s open day, tractor rides, games and a barbecue will take place alongside a host of information boards erected to explain the inner workings of the farm.
Derek, who was born and raised on farms in north Cheshire before moving to Warwickshire 12 years ago, says: “We’ll be able to show people exactly how their food is produced, right from preparing the land through to delivering the crops to the customer.
"Although we don’t normally have animals on the farm, there will be some there on the day so people can learn about that aspect too.
“It’s so important people are able to see and learn where their food is coming from and what happens to get it from the land to the supermarket.”
Research shows more than 40 per cent of people aged 16 to 24 have never visited a working farm and 20 per cent of children have never visited the countryside, which Derek is keen to change.
As well as showing visitors the crops, there will be people on hand to talk about the role the farm plays in conservation – British farmers contribute more than £400 million of unpaid work, maintaining the countryside including work such as planting hedges and sowing wild flowers.
For Dunnington Court, its conservation work comes in the form of plum orchards and wild bird strips, and while Derek admits that some aspects of farming are controversial, he is keen not to shy away from those issues.
He says: “There are lots of emotive subjects in farming, for example the use of pesticides which people can have very strong views on. These are the sorts of things we want the public to be talking to us about when they visit.”
Derek is also making plans for the farm’s future. He said: “Normally there are 20 full-time staff but in the height of summer there are around 800 who pack the raw materials, grade them, trim them and dispatch them to supermarkets.
"All of our crops are very labour intensive and one thing we want to do is reduce our dependence on seasonal labour so we are looking at mechanisation.
"I split my days 50/50 between managing everything and admin and farming. A lot of work goes into the running of a farm, more than most people probably realise.”
* Dunnington Court Farm will be open from 11am to 4pm on Sunday, June 12. For details of other farms opening to the public on June 12 visit: www.leafuk.org/ofs/home.eb
