| Welcome to Green Vale Agricultural Park. |
| As you know, we have only been open a week, |
| so you are amongst our first visitors. |
| We have lots of fascinating indoor and outdoor exhibits on our huge complex, spreading hundreds of hectares. |
| Our remit is to give educational opportunities to the wider public |
| as well as to offer research sites for a wide variety of agriculturists and other scientists. |
| Let's start by seeing what there is to do. |
| As you can see here on our giant wall plan, |
| we are now situated in the Reception block... here. |
| As you walk out of the main door into the park, |
| there's a path you can follow. |
| If you follow this route, |
| you will immediately come into the Rare Breeds section, |
| where we keep a wide variety of animals |
| which I shall be telling you a little more about later. |
| Next to this... moving east... is the large grazing area for the rare breeds. |
| Then further east... in the largest section of our Park is the Forest Area. |
| South of the grazing area, and in fact, just next to the Reception block is our Experimental Crop Area. |
| In the middle of the Park... this circular area is our lake... |
| These two small rectangular shapes here... |
| are the Fish Farms where we rear fish for sale. |
| To the east of those is the marsh area, |
| which attracts a great many migrant birds |
| In the south-eastern corner, beyond the marsh, |
| is our Market Garden area, growing vegetables and flowers. |
| All these areas can be visited by the general public for almost all the year... |
| although... please take note of the large signs at the entrance to each area |
| which tell you when certain areas are being used for particular controlled experiments |
| and are therefore temporarily out of bounds to the public. |
| You can see for yourself what a huge area the park covers |
| and a key question is always, how can we move around? |
| Well you have a choice of means... |
| all environmentally friendly... |
| cars are banned in the park. |
| We have bicycles which you can hire behind the Reception block... here... |
| the healthy ones of you can go on foot |
| and finally there's our electric tram, powered from solar cells. |
| You find more information about this at the front entrance. |
| A good place to start on your tour is the Rare Breeds section. |
| We keep goats, sheep and hens and other kinds of poultry. |
| We are also thinking of bringing in cows and horses |
| but we do not, as yet, have facilities for these bigger animals. |
| The animals are fed in public twice a day |
| and a short lecture given on their feeding habits and nutritional needs. |
| These are very popular with the public but... |
| of course we mustn't lose sight of the main purpose of having this section, |
| not as such to preserve rare animals but to maintain the diversity of breeds |
| to broaden the gene pool for agricultural development. |
| Green Vale changes with the seasons with different events happening at different times of the year. |
| May will be perhaps our most spectacular month with the arrival of the Canada geese |
| and when our fruit trees will be in full blossom, |
| but there are interesting events on all year round.... |
| for example John Havers, our expert fly fisherman, is currently giving displays on the lake. |
| Each of the sections has its own seasonal calendar... |
| please consult the summary board at the main entrance. |
| And the final section, as we return to the Reception blocks, is the orchard. |
| Do take time to browse round our shop... |
| there's a wide selection of books on wildlife, |
| some of them written by local authors, |
| and the history of farming, including organic farming, |
| something which the park will be diversifying into in the coming months. |