We recently had the absolute pleasure of welcoming pupils from Clehonger Primary School and Staunton-on-Wye Endowed Primary School to Lower Blakemere Farm through the Herefordshire Food Charter’s Farm Link programme.
We had one group of around 15 children and another of around 22, and between them they brought plenty of questions, plenty of knowledge and absolutely no shortage of opinions.
One pupil already knew that there is starch inside wheat, which was rather impressive.
Another looked at the figures behind a loaf of bread and announced that it was “clearly unfair” that a supermarket loaf costing around £3.50 might return only about 11p to the farmer for the wheat inside it.
Frankly, we struggled to argue with that.
During the visits, we talked about wheat, soil, worms, livestock, crops, food production and what farmers are actually paid. We looked at the way everything on a mixed farm connects, from what is happening beneath the soil to what eventually ends up on a supermarket shelf.
There were plenty of practical questions, but also some very sharp observations.
Children are very good at cutting through the complicated bits.
They also appeared to reach several firm conclusions:
Harvey the dog is the real star of Lower Blakemere.
Worms are both fascinating and slightly weird.
Tractors remain excellent.
And Phil is much easier to draw than some of the livestock.
The thank-you cards from both schools were wonderful. They included wheat, peas, worms, cattle, Harvey, mini trucks, Farmer Phil and one particularly memorable herd of “Cosmic Cows.”
They also showed us what the children had remembered.
That matters.
Farm visits are not just about a nice day out. They help children connect bread with wheat, food with soil and supermarket prices with the people who actually grow the ingredients.
They show that farming is not simply tractors going up and down fields. It is biology, weather, economics, animal care, soil, machinery, risk and a great deal of mud.
A huge thank you to the pupils and staff from Clehonger Primary and Staunton-on-Wye, and to the Herefordshire Food Charter for bringing us together.
We thoroughly enjoyed having everyone here and very much hope we can welcome more schools to Lower Blakemere in the future.
Opening the farm gate is one of the best ways we know to help children understand where their food comes from.
And occasionally they explain the food system back to us rather better than the grown-ups do. https://herefordshirefoodcharter.org.uk/blog/posts/farm-link-school-trips-to-lower-blakemere-farm
