An inspirational Kent farmer is working with a national farming and education charity to bring live farming into the heart of classrooms across the country.
Fidelity Weston of Romshed Farm, Sevenoaks, has worked with The Country Trust to install a live web cam in her lambing shed allowing children from towns and cities across the country to watch in real time as 150 ewes give birth to new lambs right in front of their eyes.
Every year education charity The Country Trust brings the working countryside alive for nearly 25,000 disadvantaged primary school children through day visits to real working farms.
Now, thanks to support from Fidelity, one of the charity’s host farmers, the video camera can transmit fantastic footage directly into schools near and far.
The webcam means that for the first time the charity can bring the reality of farm and country life into the classrooms of thousands of schools, providing compelling real-time viewing for children and a valuable resource for teachers to support the Science curriculum.
Recorded footage includes the first lamb born on the farm this season and some fun footage of a litter of lively one week old piglets and their mum running around their sty and outdoor pen.
'Opens up wonderful possibilities'
Jill Attenborough, Chief Executive of The Country Trust said it is a first for the charity and something everyone is 'immensely excited' about.
“We are acutely aware that there are many thousands of children who aren’t yet able to take part in our farm visit programme. The webcam opens up so many wonderful possibilities for us to bring the farm into urban homes and classrooms.
“Springtime on the farm is full of new life and as well as lambing we plan to show swallows nesting, piglets in their sty and calves being born too. Our mission is to bring the countryside alive for those children who are least likely to be able to access it – we think our LambCam is going to be a great step forward.
“In a post-Brexit world, it is key that they are aware of the importance of a thriving agricultural economy and as a charity we aim to bridge that gap between town and country.”
'Terrific project'
Farmer Fidelity Weston agrees: “When we were first approached by The Country Trust to be involved in this terrific project, we jumped at the chance as we had already been thinking about how to deepen our engagement with our existing schools and to bring farming life to a greater number of schools.
“With the webcam schools that already have a visit can continue to see what is going on at the farm when they are back at school and we can also engage with more schools.
“Over time we would like to install more cameras to show all of the wonderful things that happen on the farm and in doing so, I hope we are encouraging children to develop an understanding of farming and where their food comes from.”
