An #11,500 multi-cultural picnic is to be staged in the West Midlands to encourage more ethnic minorities to venture into the countryside.
The event, at Waseley Hills Country Park in Rubery, is part of plans to unite urban residents with the farmers and growers on their doorstep.
The picnic has been funded by regional development agency Advantage West Midlands, the National Farmers' Union, Worcestershire County Council and Ethical First.
NFU spokesman Michael Oakes, who farms near the Lickey Hills, said: " Being a farmer in a rural area close to an urban area there is a massive amount of consumers who don't understand how food producers work and don't realise that on their doorstep there is a lot of vegetables grown and milk produced. I live next to the Lickey Hills and probably 99 per cent of the visitors are white.
"We live in a multicultural region and yet it is not that often we see people from ethnic backgrounds in the countryside. Yet you don't have to go very far to where the ethnic minority population is greater than the white population."
Zad Padda, a Birmingham gangmaster whose Sikh family run a strawberry farm in Worcestershire, said: "I don't think it is patronising. Anything that encourages ethnic communities into the country is a good thing."
Visitors are invited to bring picnics to the event on Saturday, September 10 from 10.30am. There will also be a farmers' market and regional food display.
