Rosie Crust (Education Development Manager at Lincolnshire Showground), Alison Pratt NFU East Midlands Regional Communications Adviser) in partnership with The Lincolnshire Agricultural Society, staged this huge family event for the third year.  The event was kindly sponsored by Karu Ltd with support from FeRN (Lincs) members.

It was a guaranteed fun filled and happy day out for all the family and the weather was glorious too! Children and grown-ups met local farmers and food producers and learned how they grow, rear and produce their local food and were able to sample many of the delights on offer.  There were also environmental businesses and wildlife trusts present who shared their knowledge and passion for looking after the countryside and environment with visitors.  With many businesses handing out information and "freebies" families were able to return home armed with lots of valuable information.  A range of farm machinery was brought to the event by the local machinery dealers, so that children and grown ups could see the size and capability of modern farm machinery and were able to get to sit inside a tractor or two!

We had a stand there in The Food Hall and visitors were able to learn how we grow our own crop of oilseed rape, harvest our own crop of oilseed rape, press and bottle our own rapeseed oil.  (We get roughly 30% oil out of the seed by cold pressing it).  We had samples of our own seed, our own "waste" by-product pellet (which we treat as cattle feed and mix into rations for our herd of suckler cattle) - there's still about 10-13% oil remaining in the by-product pellet which is also rich in protein - did you know that Refining Oil companies can heat up pellets like this and remove the little bit of oil left using Hexane?  This sort of cheap refined oil is widely available.  Visitors were able to see our premium golden cold pressed rapeseed oil and the seed next to the by-product pellets and cheap refined oil to compare quality, colour, taste and it was commented how our home-grown rapeseed oil wasn't "oily" to the palette unlike the refined oil.

It was lovely meeting so many great families and seeing them have a truly enjoyable day out.  The next farming event on www.lincolnshireshowground.co.uk is of course The Lincolnshire Show on 21st and 22nd June 2017 .  Check out their website for details of ticket prices and facilities.

We had samples of cakes and tray bakes made with our oil for everyone to taste, lots of information on British Farming, the NFU and local organisations who promote local food.  A local teenager (who is studying cookery for GCSE) won our "giveaway prize" of a copy of my "Ronnie's Rapeseed Oil Recipes" cookbook, as well as bottles of our rapeseed oil and a locally made fruit vinegar (perfect to make a dressing/marinade with our oil).  We are delighted she was thrilled to win and is looking forward to using our oil and use my recipes - it is so important that we all help encourage the next generation to cook and be aware of their local farmers and producers - and the event on the Showground last weekend continues that important work.

Until next month!