The rabbit and tourism farm, better known as or the “Sunny Farm” is located in the village of Tankovo in the Eastern Rhodopes, Bulgaria.
It is a place for rural tourism and various leisure activities. Here you can sleep on a tent, eat a delicious rustic lunch, prepare food in the equipped summer kitchen and relax stress-free on the meadow or on a nearby dam. Children can get acquainted with the animals on the farm – rabbits, chicks, donkeys, puppies and kittens. They can caress and feed them as well as spend all day laughing and playing in the yard.
The concept of “returning to the village” of the Sunny Farm includes a special attitude towards children and their early childhood education through the “learning by empathy” method. Various events are organized for them – excursions, schools courses, camps, etc. where children participate in farm activities and experience the stories of the real life in the countryside. “Return to the village” is an immersion in the idyll of the rural way of living and a real involvement in the daily farming activities. It is also a return to nature and to the understanding for children that man is part of nature and every little human activity – from throwing garbage out of the bin to breaking branches of trees – leaves its imprint on it.
The farm is a working rabbit farm where the authentic appearance of the farm has been preserved since the beginning of the 20th century – the building has brick walls plastered with mud and straw. Mud and straw are some of the basic materials children use in creative pursuits when speaking in simple words about the invaluable properties of eco-building and the quality of life it provides. The roof is with Turkish tiles, collected from old houses and abandoned yards in the village.
The Sunny Farm is home to 145 rabbits and their baby rabbits together with male rabbits, donkeys, dogs and cats; moreover, neighboring farms have bee hives, pigeons, vegetables and vines with sweet grapes.
The farm workers are a team of young people enthusiastic about the idea of doing things differently and professionally. Each of them is a specialist in their field – agriculture, tourism, biodiversity, sports, ecology and more. They are not just a family business, they are like-minded people who have joined forces in the name of the cause to teach children where food comes from, what is eco-friendly food, how wheat becomes bread, how a rabbit is born and lives, what is the role of each animal and a flower in the ecosystem and why it is important to protect nature.
Sunny Farm is an officially registered livestock farm, with a separate sanitary facility and equipment for packaging and storage of meat on the farm in the village of Tankovo. The farm, in addition to its own production, cooperates with farmers from all over the region and works on a cooperative basis, offering wines, honey and fresh cheese.
The rabbits and the equipment for their rearing in the Sunny Farm were purchased and built under a project whose activities are funded under sub-measure 6.1. “Starting aid for young farmers” from RDP 2014-2020, supported by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development.
