Training for school farm visits is a first for Wales

The first course in Wales for farmers interested in running school visits is to be based at a Rhondda Valley livestock farm on 8 and 18 January.

When the Farmers Union of Wales presidential team visited Lakeside Farm Park at Glynogw, it heard that the two day Countryside Educational Visits Accreditation Scheme training would cost farmers £60 plus VAT.

But Eira Edwards, who runs the park with husband Russell on their upland sheep unit, said learners could be eligible for 50% support from LANTRA.

The course, supported by Farming and Countryside Education in association with YMCA Wales Community College, will help farmers set up visits that met national curriculum and health and safety requirements.

It will cover topics like talking to children and the use of visual teaching aids and access to educational grants.

Format

The format was designed by Mrs Edwards, who has worked with school parties since 2005, and her sister Julie Thomas, who farms with her husband Geoff two miles away and runs Simply the Best Training Consultancy.

Set up in 1998, the LANTRA approved consultancy specialises in staging diversification, marketing, business, health and safety and rural skills courses at Caerlan Farm in Tonyrefail and at a range of venues, including the Welsh Assembly.

Russell Edwards told his visitors that Lakeside Farm Park offered trout and coarse fishing in two managed lakes he had created on a former landfill site. There was a café, play facilities for children and a function room large enough to accommodate wedding receptions.

He had done much of the building work himself and where possible used second hand materials.

“Farmers need to realise that diversification is not straightforward,” said Mr Edwards. It requires great commitment of money and time and can be hit by external factors like an outbreak of E coli in schools or foot-and-mouth.

“But despite the setbacks the past few years have proved to us that if we had not diversified we would not be able to make a living from our 700 ewes.”

Gareth Vaughan, FUW president, said the two families were extraordinary examples of the resilience and adaptability of farmers. They successfully shared farm machinery and labour and extended the co-operation to their different diversifications.