By Debbie James

For the young people whose only experience of agriculture is seven days at the Farm for City Children near St David’s, the coveted ‘Farmer of the Week’ award is so highly prize that some are known to include it on their university application forms.

“It’s unbelievable that a week of shovelling muck and digging swedes can have such a positive effect on children!’’ laughs Dan Jones, who is the farm school manager at Lower Treginnis Farm, the most westerly mainland farm in the UK.

But there is a serious side to this anecdote because many of the 26,000 children who have worked the land and cared for the livestock at this 700-year-old farm since 1990 live in challenging inner city areas.

It is likely to be the first time they have visited the countryside, let alone a farm.

From Friday to Friday, for 32 weeks of the year, children learn to milk goats, grow and harvest vegetables and muck out pens. They are not spared some of the harsher realities of agriculture, that the meat served up at meal times is from an animal reared at the farm or by its partner farmers, Rob and Eleri Jones.

“We make the children aware that the goats will one day be killed for meat but rather than being upset or squeamish about this they appreciate that the animals have been reared for this purpose and that they have had a good life,’’ says Dan.

He had been teaching in Swansea but had become disillusioned with the new approach to education with pupil performance targets and curriculum requirements that, for the children, seemingly had little purpose.

“There is such a level of data now needed in education. I noticed that the children were no longer skipping out of class, testing was having a negative impact on teachers and that was transferring to the children. So I quit!’’ he recalls, quoting a line by the poet, William Butler Yeats. “Education is not the falling of a pail but the lighting of a fire.’’

As a teacher, he would take his class to a farm and could see the positive impact this had on them.

“Children come to the farm to learn about farming, food and the countryside, they don’t waste a moment of time. There is a purpose in what they are doing, it fills them to the brim with confidence.

“These are children who might not do well in an academic setting so this experience is a real leveller.’’

The Farm for City Children at Lower Treginnis Farm was founded by the

award-winning children's author, Michael Morpurgo and his wife, Claire, one of three farms acquired by the charity.

Since 1990 it has offered urban children from all over the UK the opportunity to live and work for a week on a real farm in the heart of the countryside.

For the children, it is an early start to their days – out on the yard at 7.30am to feed the animals and milk the goats. Other tasks include chopping firewood, working in the garden and checking the stock.

Rob and Eleri, who are partner farmers and are paid an access fee by the charity, run a flock of 900 ewes and some beef cattle, spreading their lambing pattern from January to April so that the maximum number of children possible get the chance of seeing a lamb being born.

“We are not a real farm, we are more of a 1950s smallholding, but our partnership with Rob and Eleri brings the extra dimension. The children see the real process,’’ says Dan.

As much food as possible is produced on the farm or acquired from Rob and Eleri. A signature dish is the ‘Fifty Metre Shepherd’s Pie’, made of ingredients produced just a short distance from the kitchen.

“The children can be digging potatoes at 11am and eating them by 12.30pm,’’ says Dan.

He admits that his passion isn’t farming, education is his driver, but believes farming is a good vehicle for that.

“Farming gives children a sense of purpose, they are achieving something.’’

The Farmers’ Union of Wales recently visited the farm and was impressed with the connection it offered city children to the countryside and food production.

“As a union and as farmers we have a responsibility to give all children an understanding of how their food is produced. For some of these children it will be the only time in their entire lives that they might visit a farm,’’ says Pembrokeshire farmer, Brian Thomas, who is the union’s deputy president.