Food and biodiversity will be at the heart of LEAF's two-day virtual Open Farm Sunday event this weekend.

Farming's annual open day in June was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, but a successful online replacement has sparked this weekend's event with farmers encouraged to go live on Facebook, send in videos and share photographs about their wildlife and biodiversity highlights.

The focus on Saturday is nutritious food, seasonal recipes and cookery demonstrations while on Sunday farmers are invited to virtually open their farm gates and show the public how their food is produced and the amazing work they are doing to protect and enhance the wildlife and biodiversity on their farms.

LEAF (Linking Environment and Farming) Open Farm Sunday manager Annabel Shackleton said: "At the very heart of LEAF Open Farm Sunday is telling the real stories of farming and this is the perfect opportunity for farmers across the country to get involved and collectively make a huge positive impact on the British public.

"It is not the event we had originally planned for 2020, but in fact both of our virtual events - in June and in September - provide an amazing opportunity to involve more farmers from all corners of the country."

She continued: "These could be farmers who may not have been able to host a LEAF Open Farm Sunday event for whatever reason before, but who can dip their toe in this year with as little as one photo or a self-made video on their social channels.

"What we want to show is a really rich and diverse kaleidoscope of farming stories from the people who can tell them best."