Award-winning Derbyshire farm shop Croots will be opening its gates to the public for a charity fundraising day as part of a nationwide event to showcase British farming.
LEAF Open Farm Sunday, held this year on Sunday June 7 , is the farming industry’s national open day, with hundreds of farms throwing open their gates to give the public the chance to find out more about where their food comes from.
Among them is Farnah House Farm, Wirksworth Road near Duffield – the home of the award-winning Croots Farm Shop.
The farm will be open from 11am to 4.00pm on Sunday 7th June and will feature a range of displays including sheep shearing and blacksmith demonstrations. There’s also the chance to enjoy Shire horse dray rides and find out more about how the gentle giants of the horse world are cared for at the farm. Or maybe meet the farmer and discover more about looking after and rearing sheep and lambs?
In addition, there will be butchery demonstrations, spinning wool demonstrations, tractors for kids to climb into, plus, visitors can explore a farm trail, take part in competitions including a Fun Dog Show with 16 categories, and enjoy games, face painting, music and a BBQ.
Croots Farm Shop is run by Kay Croot, and this is the tenth year that they have organised an open farm event. Kay grew up at the farm – a 72-acre sheep farm producing lamb for the farm shop – and her parents Jim and Sue Yates still live there.
Shire horses have been grazing in the fields around Farnah House Farm for decades, and a couple of the mares at the farm have recently given birth to foals. The LEAF (Linking Environment and Farming) Open Farm Day event is the ideal opportunity to find out more about the breed, which has played such a big role in the farming history of Great Britain.
Kay Croot said: “Open Farm Sunday is the ideal time to discover more about what goes on behind the scenes at a farm and how food is produced. We hope that lots of families will join us to see real farming, first-hand.
“We’ve organised displays and demonstrations, plus there’ll be the chance to take a closer look at some of the machinery used on the farm, ask questions about how the farm is run and discover more about how food ends up on the plate.
“My family have been farmers for generations. I grew up at Farnah House Farm and work at Croots Farm Shop which opened here 18 years ago. Not only do we sell our home-produced items at Croots, we also sell products made on farms across Derbyshire and beyond.
“We’re delighted to be taking part in the LEAF Open Farm Sunday once again and look forward to welcoming visitors on 7th June.”
Admission to the event is free, with free car parking, but the Croots team will be raising money for local charities.
Since the first Open Farm Sunday [https://farmsunday.org/about-us] in 2006, more than 1,600 farmers across the UK have opened their gates and welcomed 2.2 million people onto their farm for one Sunday each year.
The annual event was established to help farmers shine a light on what they deliver and why supporting British farming matters, as well as discovering first-hand what it means to be a farmer, the work farmers do producing the nation’s food, their role in the countryside, and all the goods and services farmers provide.
Croots Farm Shop, which is based at Farnah House Farm, is open Monday to Saturday from 9am to 5pm (Shires Eatery until 4.30pm) and from 10am to 4pm on Sundays. Croots runs Fresh Fish Thursdays between 9am and 1pm on Thursdays.
