The NFU is working hard to get the farming message across to people of all ages.
The travelling barn has been to 35 shows across the length and breadth of the country and been visited by more than 35,000 people. It seeks to teach children about where their food comes from by providing hands-on opportunities to learn about farming.
This includes a model cow to milk called ‘Annabelle’, a throwing game showing all the different tasks farmers do and, of course, an opportunity to drive a virtual reality combine harvester!
Annabelle, the wooden cow, has been milked 30,000 times by visitors; that’s quite an impressive churn-over.
The whole barn is fronted by friendly farming duo Ben and Ellie, two cartoon characters who invite four-to-nine-year-olds to take part in a fun activity trail. The average age of the Discovery Barn’s visitors is just six-years-old. The barn’s content was developed with support from educational experts from the Science Museum and ZSL London Zoo to ensure the right language was used to encourage children to participate in the activities, have fun, and have memories to take away about farming.
One young visitor summed up his love for the barn, saying: “I’d like to be a farmer now, I like it here.”
The Discovery Barn will be out on the road again from April, visiting even more shows during 2018. If you’d like the little farmers in your family to learn more about farming and growing, head to the Back British Farming section of the Countryside website where dates will be posted very soon - watch this space!