At this years Royal Bath & West Show the Farming for the Family section has been created specifically to encourage hands on involvement, with the theme being ‘All food – animal and human - comes from soil or water’. This is a particularly good area for a family to visit as it is dedicated to educating children and adults about where food comes from and how it is harvested.
Children will be invited to collect a handful of grain from the big combine harvester, walk across the farm yard to feed some hens, where they can then collect an egg to take to the Farm House Kitchen, to be shown by a trained chef how to cook and eat it. The Farmhouse Kitchen, sponsored by Spillers of Chard, is an exciting new feature of the Farming for the Family section where visitors can watch the chefs cooking traditional Farm House fare using an Aga or Range showing how versatile these can be at producing delicious meals with very little fuss. Together with this and the children’s cookery area plus demonstrations and breakfast suggestions from celebrity chef Paul Hartley this area should not be missed.
Visitors can watch a cow being milked, after which the fresh warm milk will go to the farmhouse kitchen for butter, cream and ice-cream making demonstrations using traditional methods. Samples of West Country cheese will also be available as a further example of another product made from milk and can be washed down with fresh glass of chilled milk.
A demonstration of ewe scanning will be regularly conducted by Bob Blundon throughout the show so the growth of the lamb in the womb can be seen. Visitors will be able to try their hand at lambing using a very realistic simulator. Experts will be on hand to talk about what is involved in keeping sheep fit and healthy and show a variety of the breeds.
Within the farm yard a sow and litter, calves, lambs, dairy cows and beef stock can all be seen plus a pool of carp as an example of fish farming. A display of growing crops and their by-products including grain will take centre stage in Farming for the Family along with a machinery exhibition which will show how the modern day farmer introduces seed into the soil and then harvests the crops once fully grown. Experts in farming and it’s traditions will be on hand to answer questions and encourage both children and adults to investigate all areas of the yard.