Despite some bad weather, the UFU’s
Open Farm Weekend initiative enjoyed a fantastic turnout recently with nearly
10,000 people visiting real, working farms to learn more about farming and
local food. The event, now in its second year, saw a large increase in
participating farms and an even larger increase in people visiting a farm, many
for the first time on the weekend of the 15th and 16th of
June.
Morrow Communications ran an
integrated communications campaign for the project involving media relations,
social media management and advertising across TV, radio, online and local
press titles. The campaign ran in two distinct phases - the first targeting the
agri-sector to encourage participation in the event from potential host farmers
and young farmers and the second to drive awareness and understanding of the
event with the consumer, which ran just ahead of the main event. Morrow were
also tasked with managing the project’s online presence and providing on-farm
teaching aids to help relate the “field to fork” message to farm visitors.
The OFW team at Morrows were
delighted to see attendance figures this year soaring far beyond those of Open
Farm Weekend 2012 - in total 9,690 people visited participating farms this year
- an almost 100% improvement on 2012 figures.
Barclay Bell, Deputy President of
Ulster Farmers’ Union said, “The weather conditions were certainly challenging
for some of our farmers on the Saturday. But I was delighted to see first-hand
that this didn’t deter the people of Northern Ireland from coming out in their
thousands to make the most of Open Farm Weekend!”
The 2013 initiative saw 19 real
working farms opening their gates to the public to learn more about where their
food comes from and to get a “behind the scenes” look at a real, working farm.
Each event was as unique as the farmer, with some providing fascinating guided
tours and others hosting eating challenges, barbecues, games and petting zoos.
Open Farm Weekend is a project by
Ulster Farmers’ Union and is supported by The Department of Agriculture’s
Regional Food Programme and Business in the Community NI, on behalf of The
Prince’s Countryside Fund and is sponsored by Bank of Ireland UK and NFU Mutual.
