Our mission is to inspire, educate and connect and it’s wonderful to begin welcoming visitors back to FarmED.
One of the highlights this month was our International Dawn Chorus Day Breakfast, led by ornithologist, Richard Broughton. Bird surveys at FarmED have shown that the diversity of bird species has risen significantly over recent years as we’ve worked hard to create habitats for farmland birds and embarked on hungry gap supplementary feeding projects. It was truly magical to listen to the amazing crescendo of birdsong at 5:00am as the sun rose up over the Evenlode Valley.
Our regular Friday Farm Walk & Picnic events are proving very popular. Favourite sights are the Heritage Orchard, where many of the fruit trees are displaying glorious blossom, and the newborn calves and lambs skipping about in the field. Young farmer Hallam's pregnant ewes started lambing in April and his brand new micro dairy welcomed three calves.
Farm Walks are followed by delicious picnics with menus featuring cardamom pickled squash, baby leaf salad, creamy pumpkin dressing and sprouted seeds; King Stone Dairy cheese and heritage grain sourdough; Woodlands Farm yoghurt, rhubarb and Honeydale honey compote, wildflower granola and lemon drizzle loaf.
Meanwhile, a group of farmers and landowners from the Chilterns AONB came to discover more about farming for the environment and conservation and enjoyed a farm walk and bowls of farm-to-table squash soup in the sunshine. Two socially-distanced coach loads of students came from the University of Oxford. Studying for an MSc/MPhil in Environmental Change and Management and representing five continents, they went on a farm walk with Founder, Ian Wilkinson, and enjoyed al fresco, locally-sourced pizzas from our wood-fired pizza oven, made with Cotswold Flour.
Below are just some of the lovely comments we’ve received.
Polly from Jaffe & Neale Bookshop: We had such a wonderful time coming out to FarmED on Sunday for the Dawn Chorus – it was a fantastic event and then to sit with our breakfast and watch the morning arrive in the valley was just great.
Ally Bailey: Just a note to say how much we appreciated everything on Sunday. It was the most beautiful morning. Richard was fascinating and we loved hearing more about FarmED. Breakfast was delicious and we could have stayed all day enjoying the view..The project is very impressive.
Harriet Bennett - Agriculture/nature conservation specialist working for the Chilterns Conservation Board: What a fabulous place, so full of positive energy and expertise.
Nick Marriner, bird surveyor: Inspiring visit. Agroecology brought to life.
We’re looking forward to holding lots more events in the summer. Sign up for our newsletter, check out the current programme on our events page or contact sophie@farm-ed.co.uk, if you’d like to hire FarmED or bring your group for a bespoke event.
Delivery of our mission is a collective effort and our values embrace inclusivity and diversity. We don’t want price to be a barrier to anyone visiting FarmED or attending our events so we’ve introduced a tiered pricing scheme and also have a discretionary bursary pot.