FEATURES
Show Off Your Farm

by Marcia Passos Duffy

The basics of hosting a tour

Cobblestone Valley Farm’s tour called “Picnic on the Farm” conducted during strawberry season. Shown, owners Paul Knapp (in red shirt), and Maureen Knapp (in hat and white shirt). Photos courtesy of Cobblestone Valley Farm.

During your busy season the last thing you have time for is to stop work and spruce yourself up—and your farm—for visitors.

However, the benefits of hosting a farm tour outweigh the inconveniences.

“We have been doing [tours] for 15 years or so ... and it has been great publicity for our farm and what we offer,” said Rachel Harris, who owns Harris Farm with her family in Dayton, Maine, a 500-acre diversified dairy farm. Harris and her husband, Clint, own and operate the dairy, beef and vegetable aspect of the farm, while her in-laws, Dixie and Bill, own and operate the sweet corn and cross-country skiing part of the farm.

Not only is the PR value important, says Harris, but educating the public about farming is a critical role farmers need to take in their local community.

Maureen Knapp agrees. She co-owns Cobblestone Valley Enterprises with her husband, Paul. They host tours for a diverse audience including school-age children, college students, other farmers and the public.

“Fewer people are connected to farms or farmers these days, and we’ve observed that people have a sort of yearning to get in touch with their roots,” said Knapp, who farms in Preble, N.Y., 20 miles south of Syracuse on 600 acres that has been in her husband’s family for four generations. The dairy farm has recently transitioned from conventional to organic. The farm also sells direct market meats, poultry and eggs, and has an established certified organic PYO strawberry business.

Not only are well-conducted farm tours knowledgeable for participants, but farmers also learn from visitors, said Knapp.

Cobblestone Valley Farm’s “Picnic on the Farm” tour; poultry cage with turkeys.

How to plan a farm tour

A farm tour takes more than cleaning up your farm and opening your doors. A successful tour requires careful planning. You need to determine your budget for the tour, scheduling, audience, number of guests and other factors.

Many of the answers will become clear once you determine why you want to host a tour. Most tours focus on these four messages:

1. Education
2. Environmental awareness
3. Social awareness
4. Food and animal demonstrations

Once you determine the primary reason you want to host a farm tour, the next step is to figure out who your audience is.

• Do you want to open up your farm for educational purposes for your area’s schoolchildren (as well as church youth groups, 4H and scouting)?
• Do you want the public to know more about farming in general, and your farm in particular so you can sell more products locally?
• Do you want to host media tours for possible story generation about your sustainable farm?
• Do you want local politicians to visit so they understand the importance of farming in your community?

You will also want to set limits on a several aspects of your farm tour:

• Number of people you can comfortably accommodate on your farm at a time.
• How many tours you will host per year.
• When you will host the tours (peak production time is usually not the best time for tours).
• Where you will allow your visitors to go on your farm.
• If you will offer refreshments, giveaways, brochures, etc. from the experience.
• How much money you want to allocate to promote and host the tours.

Conducting the tour

There are many ways to conduct tours that meet your goals and limitations of your time and resources.

Harris limits tours to the months of May and October only. “(My mother-in-law and I) do a ‘baby animal tour’ in May and a pumpkin picking tour in October ... and we host tours mid-week during those months only,” said Harris.

The tour’s audience is limited to young children, preschool through first grade. In May, the goal is to give the children an appreciation for where food comes from. The one-hour tour includes a short slide presentation about what the family does on the farm followed by a trip into the barn where the children can take turns milking a cow. They are then allowed to handle the baby animals, including chicks, bunnies and kittens.

“We then give a short hayride around the farm, and then go back to our farm store where everyone gets a taste of our chocolate milk ... the whole process is very hands-on,” said Harris. In October, hayrides are offered to the pumpkin patch where kids can pick a pumpkin, a gourd and a piece of Indian corn. First graders also pick their own bag of vegetables along with their pumpkin.

The Knapps host a diversified audience. For large groups, they set up stations that highlight different facets of the farm, including the milk house, pasture, calves/cows, poultry and compost. Each station lasts 10 to 20 minutes, and then the group moves on to the next station.

“For class-size groups, we’ll walk everyone around the farm to see the different aspects of what we do and how we do it,” said Knapp. “We tailor the tour to the age group attending, or specific topic(s) that a teacher requests.”

Make the tour memorable

The key to a memorable and successful tour is interaction.

Your work may be obvious to you, but it may be an entirely new experience for your guests. They will be curious to know how things are done, so show them: if you have cows, show how they are milked and include a tour of the milk house and an explanation of how the milking equipment works. Involve your guests with hands-on activities, including milking, egg gathering, butter making or riding in a hay wagon or horse-drawn sleigh.

Even mundane chores like composting can provide an interesting stop for visitors by showing guests the raw ingredients, how the composter works, what the end product looks like (and smells like), and a discussion about what you will do with the finished compost and why.

This experience will make learning fun and memorable, and give your visitors a positive impression of their time on the farm.

Remember to think of your audience and what they know (or don’t know) about farming. Don’t speak to them in jargon they don’t understand. For example, most visitors won’t understand when you talk about “pounds” of milk, but they will understand gallons.

Encourage questions and if you don’t have the answer to a question, let visitors know you’ll find out the answer and get back to them.

Safety and cleanliness comes first

Before a single visitor sets foot on your farm, you need to make sure you have a “visitor-safe” environment. Don’t let your visitors wander around the farm unattended; use locks, barriers and bold signage to restrict access to places they should not go, such as equipment and storage areas, ponds/lagoons, near electrical fences, or places where animals are housed.

Check your farm’s liability insurance to make sure you’re covered for visits by the public—you may need additional insurance if you are providing rides in wagons or sleighs. You also want to ensure you can accommodate visitors with special needs (i.e., handicap accessibility).

Not only should your farm be safe for visitors, but it also should be aesthetically pleasing. “We usually have to start chores early on tour days to make sure the barn is cleaned up before the bus arrives,” noted Harris.

Most visitors understand that farming is not clean work, but you should make sure that your farm is presentable: equipment put in place, machinery in good condition, grass mowed, and the barn neat and clean. Make sure there are enough toilet facilities for your guests; you may have to provide portable toilets for large events.

You may also want to take necessary bio-security measures to limit the transmission of disease into your farm, particularly if other farmers are visiting. These include providing plastic disposable boots or foot baths, encouraging hand washing after animal contact, and having a limited area accessible to the public.

After the tour is over

Evaluate the tour and what worked and did not work. If you had special guests, such as dignitaries or members of the media, send out hand-written thank you notes. Keep in touch with groups or schools for additional visits or follow-up questions.

For a comprehensive guide to hosting farm tours, download this free guide from Michigan AG Council, www.michfb.com/files/education/farm_tour_guide.pdf, which includes sample templates for tour letters, press releases and evaluation forms.

The author is a freelance writer from Keene, N.H.