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Have you ever wondered where your food comes from? Or what actually happens on a farm from day to day?
Today more than ever, it’s vitally important to see the connection between the food we eat and the significant impact it has on nature. With over 84% of Wales farmed, farming plays a crucial role in not only providing us with food, clean drinking water and carbon storage, but in looking after our countryside and helping to give nature a home too.
RSPB Lake Vyrnwy grounds. Eleanor Bentall, rspb-images.
On June 11 RSPB Lake Vyrnwy will be opening its doors for Open Farm Sunday, a UK-wide event organised by LEAF (Linking Environment and Farming). This special day will give everyone the chance to see where our food comes from, the daily tasks undertaken by farmers, and how they help our wildlife to thrive and keep our landscapes picture perfect.
With its myriad of outstanding countryside, delightful wildlife and a whole range of on-site activities, RSPB Lake Vyrnwy has lots to offer. Have a tour of the farm, get stuck in with sheep shearing demonstrations, dabble in sheep dog handling, or get crafty at our wool spinning demonstration. Whether you’re new to farming or not, Open Farm Sunday will give you the opportunity to discover firsthand what it means to be a farmer and the important work they do to produce our food and enhance the Welsh countryside.
Discover life on the farm and how it helps nature
During Open Farm Sunday, you’ll be given the opportunity to see RSPB Lake Vyrnwy’s live stock handling facilities, muck store and lambing sheds which allow the our farmers to manage the moorland and meadows. Managing the hills and valleys through livestock grazing helps create the wonderfully diverse habitats that birds like meadow pipits, merlin and black grouse need to survive. The grazing work our farmers undertake also compliments the work we’ve done to block man-made ditches to restore blanket bog - an internationally important habitat which stores three times the amount of carbon compared to tropical rainforests, and provides the UK with 70% of its drinking water.
Pied flycatcher. John Bridges, rspb-images
Our farmers have also introduced grazing techniques in their woodlands and you might get the chance to see them in the midst of this crucial work on Open Farm Sunday. By grazing the woodland at RSPB Lake Vyrnwy, they hope to create varied levels of vegetation from the ground up to the canopy. These varied structures will prove vital for species such as the red-listed pied flycatcher, which need an enclosed woodland structure, and the redstarts, which enjoy the scattered woodland habitat. We hope that the number of different woodland habitats created through grazing will also increase the biodiversity across the reserve.
RSPB Lake Vyrnwy also recently opened its doors for live-lambing sessions. The sessions gave the public a unique opportunity to see a lamb being born right in front of their eyes. Live-lambing sessions are an innovative way of giving everyone the chance to discover the fascinating journey that our food makes from farms like RSPB Lake Vyrnwy to our dinner plates or lunchboxes. On Open Farm Sunday, you’ll get to see these fast-growing and adorable new additions, as they bounce around the fields.
When you attend you’ll get the chance to see delightful wildlife and the crucial work farmers do for people and nature. So get your wellies on, take a walk round the farm, see the lambs in the fields, the birds high up in the trees or down low in the meadows, meet the farmers that put food on our plates, and soak up that countryside air.
When you visit we’d love to hear about the wildlife you saw and what you discovered about wildlife friendly farming. You can contact us on twitter or facebook @RSPBCymru.