Marlborough Downs farmer Laura Cooper has given a boost for this year’s Open Farm Sunday in June by revealing the work that goes on unnoticed in the countryside.
Farmers Weekly magazine has highlighted her Manor Farm, near Avebury, as she plans to become a first-time host farmer on Open Farm Sunday – June 9.
She sees it as an opportunity to promote the work farmers do that often goes unnoticed and explains: “It’s a great platform to show people that farmers need nature as much as nature needs farming.”
There are few better illustrations of this than the Marlborough Downs Nature Improvement Area (MDNIA). Laura is one of 42 farmers in the scheme, restoring habitats and linking up wildlife areas across almost 100,000 hectares of Wiltshire downland.
The MDNIA won funding from DEFRA and is supported by North Wessex Downs AONB. Their aim is to provide wildlife corridors throughout the Marlborough Downs, stringing a necklace of dew ponds and small pond complexes on a ribbon of wildflower-rich grass margins.
Specific habitats to encourage flagship species native to the area — tree sparrow and corn bunting — have been set up. Restoring chalk grassland and improving public rights of way are also key targets.
Now, a year into the three-year project, the farmers of the MDNIA are keen to show local residents what they have already achieved. So they are planning a large Open Farm Sunday event and Laura Cooper’s arable and dairy farm has been chosen as the venue.
“We’re hoping to receive about 700 to 800 visitors,” adds Laura. “But as this is our first event, I’ve got a number of concerns. Firstly, how will we advertise the event to encourage local people?”
Laura is keen to invite local villagers, but not especially the large numbers of day-trippers who come to Avebury. “So publicity in the local media, the parish magazines and leaflets through people’s doors and to local schools might work best,” she adds.
Laura also plans to put a banner at the end of the farm drive next to the main road.
A number of attractions are planned in the farmyard. The grain stores will be empty — ideal for setting up stalls, especially if the weather turns wet. “I hope each farmer involved in the MDNIA will contribute, for example by providing a tractor and trailer for rides, helping with an activity or hosting a farm walk,” she points out.
The plan is to bring farm animals on to the site in pens, but a key consideration is hand-washing facilities — which must be provided if visitors come in contact with the animals — and encouraging them to use them.
A tractor-and-trailer ride is planned to ferry visitors from the arable yard to the dairy unit. Laura estimates it will be a 50 minute round trip, including a tour of the dairy conducted by young members of the South and West Holstein Society.
Next to the grain store there is a tree-sparrow village, a wild-bird seed plot and owl box, adjacent to a field where a nature trail is planned. “These areas I hope will show people what the project is achieving,” says Laura. “But it’s a 30ha field — a bit of a long walk for small children.”
More farmers than last year are set to open their gates for Open Farm Sunday on June 9, according to organiser LEAF (Linking Environment And Farming). Farm registrations for farming’s annual open day, which drew 150,000 visitors in 2012, are up by 16 per cent compared with the same time last year.
