GUIDE: Welcome to GreenVale 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.][1]}

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 is 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.][2]}

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][3]} where we rear fish for sale. {[To the east of those is the marsh, is our Market Garden][4]} 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...which tell you when certain areas are being used for particular controlled experiments and are therefore temporarily out of bounds][5]} 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][6]}, 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.][7]} We are also thinking of bringing in cows and horse 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 delivery of breeds to broaden the gene pool for agricultural development.][8]}

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.][9]} 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 is a wide selection of books on wildlife][10]}, some of them written by local authors, and the history of farming, including organic farming, something which the park will be diversifying into the coming months.

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