#OFS14

Open Farm Sunday was hosted yet again by The Emmett Family at their family farm in Oxborough. This year however it was Nick & Susie’s daughter Liza who took charge of organizing the event.  A young woman of many talents – when she is not helping her father with lambing or teaching tourists in The Med how to sail she can be found at local boutique hotel Strattons in Swffham where she is a member of the front of house team.

As always we took one of our sows, this year it was Gloria’s turn, with her piglets for children to guess the name of her piglets.

There were also lots of sheep related activities such as Joe Emmett shearing the families flock of mules

and local shepherd Emma weighing lambs with the help of her son, James.

Team Cake as always did a a cracking job.

The sun shone and fun was had by all.

There is however a more serious side to all this and that is Education, Education, Education.

As well as the expected chorus of how they could never eat anything so cute as our piglets this afternoon I spent time with a local lady who thought I was joking when I told her that the majority of pigs in this country are born and live indoors then are slaughtered having never been outside. It is a system of farming that although I chose not to follow does not horrify me as much as it did her, which once again proves the huge disconnect in this country between the food that people consume and where it comes from.

We all owe a huge debt of gratitude to not only to The Emmett Family but also to the 400+ other famers here in The UK today who have tried today to help consumers make that connection with the food that they eat – whether it be on a Brookfield or Mega Dairy scale farm.