A major new Christmas video thanking British farmers for feeding the nation has been created as a survey reveals 96% of UK farmers will be working on Christmas day.

The video is a new take on the classic 'Twas The Night Before Christmas' poem with the new version aiming to pay tribute to British farmers and recognise how they continue to toil away on the land as the rest of the country celebrate.

The video has been created by UK agronomy, technology and strategic advice provider Agrii as a thank you to farmers for putting Christmas dinner on the table and follows an online survey showing more than nine out of 10 of the UK's 110,000 farmers will still have to work on the farm on December 25.

It also revealed 5% of the farmers working on Christmas Day will also be dealing with the challenges of welcoming new lambs into the world.

With the classic poem rewritten to highlight how farmers will be caring for livestock and crops, it shows a farmer completing tasks across the farm while other families come together and celebrate Christmas.

As the festive families rest at the end of their Christmas Day, the film ends with a touching scene as Father Christmas brings the farmer a cup of tea to say thank you while he works in a pig shed, late in the evening.

Agrii, which has a network of skilled agronomists across the UK supplying expertise and support to farmers, has created the video to tackle common misconceptions about farming in the UK and cast a spotlight on food security.

Ronan Hughes, Managing Director of Agrii, says: "Few people realise just how much work goes in to putting Christmas dinner on our tables. Farmers work year-round to feed the nation and have to overcome huge challenges to deliver the festive feast we all enjoy.

"It's important we recognise the importance of farmers to the nation's food security. The combination of the weather, disease and wider geopolitical forces has put immense pressures on farmers to deliver this year and, in many instances, yields and profits are down at farms across the UK.

"Despite this, our farmers will once again be out preparing to feed us in 2024 while we are sitting down together on Christmas day.

"This video is a simple and small gesture to thank farmers for all they do and to also hopefully help the public to better appreciate where the food on their plate is coming from."

UK farmers help to produce 10m turkeys, 700,000 tonnes of carrots, 171,000 tonnes of broccoli and cauliflower, 25m Christmas puddings and more than 20m tonnes of cereals for Christmas each year.

This year 4.1m tonnes of potatoes have been produced but this is the lowest ever recorded harvest dues to the wet weather. A total of 750m sprouts have been grown, but this number has been severely impacted by disease, and 40 million packets of pigs in blankets are also produced. This number is also drastically down because of Government vet strikes preventing pigs from being processed.

To view the video and learn more about what UK farmers do to produce Christmas dinner, visit https://www.agrii.co.uk/blog/christmas-tribute-to-farmers/