On Saturday 18th of January, 2020, around twenty students went on a trip to Yasmin Farms in Al Wafra, about two hours away.
When you first hear the word ‘farm’, what do you think of? The stereotypical image of a pink-faced, smiley man with a pitchfork wearing a red flannel shirt tucked into muddy jeans topped off with knee-high Wellingtons (totally the latest fashion)? Or a large, red barn teeming with the eye-watering stench of horse dung and wet hay? Well, Yasmin Farms wasn’t remotely like that- well, at least not to the farm-house stage. In fact, for a farm in the middle of a hot, sandy, deserted… desert, it was quite clean and pleasant…
Upon their arrival, the tour guides Larry and Edmund collected the students from the ‘cafe’ (it wasn’t really a cafe) and took them to the dairy factory, where they spoke to the students about the production of dairy products, and they were shown the process of making cheese and milk edible. They were then taken around the actual ‘agricultural’ part of the farm, where the vegetables (maize, lettuce, potatoes, cabbage, etc) are planted- did you know that vegetables flower? And did you know that when they do, they aren’t sold? There, the students had the opportunity to pick strawberries and cherry tomatoes from some of the multiple greenhouses and then fed the animals (cows, deer, peacocks, chickens, roosters, turkeys, tortoises, rabbits, bunnies, guinea pigs, camels and emus) with flowered lettuce. After that they made their way back to the gate, where a burger van (RHS) catered to them to conclude this enjoyable expedition.
All in all, the trip was highly refreshing. The staff were extremely friendly, the farm didn’t smell as a lot of students expected it to and the animals were a delightful touch. All the activities that were done, though they may not sound like much, were surprisingly exciting, and I know I’ll definitely be going again next year.
