This Sunday (8 June) is Open Farm Sunday, a fantastic opportunity to connect farmers and the public to discover the vital work our agriculture community does producing food, managing nature, and protecting the environment for us all.

Open Farm Sunday is particularly relevant this year, given the added pressures farmers are facing and the seemingly growing rift between urban and rural communities.

It was more than a little depressing to see, once again, a Labour peer illustrate their fundamental misunderstanding of rural life by branding farmers as "millionaires". Lord Watts' statement earlier this week reinforces a misleading stereotype.

Farmers are asset rich, but cash poor. Their income is marginal, and their assets are illiquid. They do an invaluable and often thankless job feeding the nation, but they have faced a volley of attacks on their livelihoods, with the sudden closure of the SFI scheme, the Family Farm Tax, and the uncertain future of schemes like ELMS - to name just a few.

The out-of-touch comments by politicians are mirrored by the self-absorbed demands of activist groups like PETA, who recently clamoured for the Royal Highland Show to scrap livestock parades. This all only serves to widen the gulf between the rural and urban communities.

The invaluable work Open Farm Sunday does in connecting urban populations with rural areas, and in building an understanding of food and farming, is therefore all the more important.

Find out the story behind our food and how farming affects our everyday lives by visiting a farm this Sunday. You can find a farm to visit here.