Social Responsibility
Roger Williams MP inspecting crops grown at a local primary school
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Social Responsibility and Sustainabilty:
Increasingly the way a business conducts itself, its attitude to its neighbours , and its attitude to the wider environment are areas of potential differentiation and where value can be added. This fact is never truer for an industry like farming where much of what we do and change is visible to many and can impact many more.
Some examples of where we can help you make a difference or where we are working behind the scenes to improve the farming image.
Children’s Education:
In recent times the non-farming public has become disconnected from how and where their food is produced. This is particularly true of school children who today show a remarkable lack of understanding in food production.
A survey for the British Nutrition Foundation revealed today that a quarter of UK primary school children think that fish fingers come from chicken or pigs. Even staple foods such as pasta and bread had kids stumped with roughly a third of children aged five to eight thinking that they are meat products. 19% of the same age group were unaware that potatoes grew under the ground, with 10% mistakenly believing they grew on trees or bushes.
Optima Excel is actively involved with helping to educate school children about how and where their food is grown by running a series of programmes in conjunction with other organisations like the British Potato Council, The Home Grown Cereals Authority and LEAF.
One initiative involves growing crops in the school playground using old tractor tyres can help them understand some of the difficulties and rewards of growing your own foods. Typically crops are grown which the children can eat themselves like carrots, potatoes, swedes, wheat and oats.
“This work helps children to gain an understanding of their food supply in an efficient yet practical way”. There are no costs involved for schools which wish to participate in these exercises and all tutors have the required registration certificates.
Adult Education:
In 2004 Optima Excel, working with The Hay Festival (www.hayfesival.org), started offering visitors the opportunity to visit one or more farms during the summer half term break.
All the farms are commercial family run businesses (as opposed to model or demonstration ones) and visitors are able to see and experience some of the realities of farming. At the end of each walk visitors are provided with a taste of the produce from the farm.
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Educational material is available for any adults who want to further expand their knowledge of agriculture and all visits involve opportunities to ask questions and discuss a wide range of issues.
We are happy to provide speakers on these topics and can tailor the content for any age group.