Family Fun on the Farm
Tourism combined with a farm/agricultural experience – or agri-tourism as it has become known – has been growing in popularity throughout the United States and, more specifically, in Minnesota with its rich and highly-textured rural heritage. Farm tours, bed and breakfasts, farmers markets, and
other tourism enterprises can help to diversify local farm operations and strengthen the region’s homegrown economy in an ever-changing world dominated by non-local influences.
With more accessible tourism choices in the countryside, visitors are increasingly drawn to rural communities. There, they spend time and money on local goods and services and, in the process, develop a better understanding of rural issues and an appreciation of sustainable practices that can enhance resources in the countryside.
Through agri-tourism, farmers can generate additional on-farm income and take advantage of urban-rural connections for purposes of direct marketing food or farm products. Bringing the marketplace onto the farm can be an important alternative to small producers who do not have the financial wherewithal for expensive direct marketing strategies.
Country Heritage Adventures is a non-profit, agri-tourism organization that manages a fifteen farm tour package in Dodge, Goodhue, Olmsted and Wabasha counties. Included in the tour are farms featuring:
* dairy herds
* emu
* buffalo
* goats
* llamas
* perennials
* antiques
* and more!
By marketing and advertising together, the individual farms save money, reach a wider audience, and offer a clustered array of tourism options for interested customers.
Mary Doerr, a Country Heritage Adventures member and an Experiment in Rural Cooperation board director, is pictured above feeding the goats at her Dancing Winds Farm. She invites tourists, markets a top quality goat cheese produced in her grade A goat dairy and cheese plant, and offers bed and breakfast accommodations for overnight guests. This is one example of how a specialty food farm operation can diversify its business base in creative and sustainable ways to stay small and remain profitable.
Outside organizations are important to the Country Heritage Adventures strategy. Area businesses can purchase participating memberships and in return receive membership recognition. Farm families who wish to be part of the tour structure buy yearly memberships.
Two University of Minnesota graduate students, a Carlson School of Management faculty member and the University Extension Service’s Tourism Center have worked on a marketing/promotion strategy under the leadership of a U. of M. Extension Service educator (and Experiment in Rural Cooperation board member) from the region. The goal over the next year is to focus the marketing efforts to test how successful agri-tourism can be in southeast Minnesota.