Is Agri-Tourism Viable in Central Minnesota?

UNDATED (WJON News) - Are farm tours and other public events a way for modern farms to supplement their income?

That was the question behind a talk at last month’s Central Minnesota Farm Show. Lucas Sjostrum, from Redhead Creamery in Sauk Centre, was on hand to answer questions and discuss how the Redhead Creamery was able to diversify from a Stearns County dairy farm into a cheese-making facility, then an agri-tourism destination, and finally a distillery.

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He says, moving forward, they’ll always be a dairy farm, but they see an advantage in tourism.

As was said in the opening introduction, we're an agri-tourism farm. We are certainly a dairy farm, we just see going forward that our best opportunity is going to be agri-tourism. I think it's due to our personalities, through our education, through the friends we've interacted with, we probably, compared to the average farmer, have had more interaction and have more willingness to let random Joe Schmo onto our farm. Our practices are not that much different than our neighbors. Our stewardship is not much different than our neighbors. So we're not trying to say we're a better farm.

Sjostrum says the dairy farm’s agri-tourism business started small, with a $50 advertisement in a statewide flyer that advertised farm tours.

And all of a sudden one Saturday, two women drive up from St. Paul. They didn't call ahead. They didn't tell us they were coming. I forgot that it said noon farm tours. They showed up right at noon on Saturday and we were lucky we were there and ready to give them a farm tour. We got to the end of the tour, and they said “So why shouldn't we support you?”. And Jerry, my father-in-law who was giving the tour said, “Well, why do you ask that?”. And the woman said, “Well, we've seen so much bad on YouTube and other places that we don't really see anything here that you're doing wrong”. And so that really flipped a switch for us.

A chance meeting with Andrew Zimmerman, the host of several food shows on the Travel and Discovery Channel, taught the Redhead Creamery the value of making agri-tourism more fun than informational.

We were able to sit down with him about 10 years ago before we started this. Andrew Zimmerman's the guy on the Travel Channel who does Bizarre Foods, eating all that stuff. He was going down the same road, he went to the Discovery Channel when he first started and said, “I want to educate people about food”. After he left, the Discovery Channel called him and said, “Okay, that's a PBS series that you just laid out, that's going to run for one year, no one's ever going to see it. And you'll be done. If you want to make it exciting and fun, we got to put about 80% entertainment, and trick people for the other 20% that they're getting educated”. He's been very successful with that. So that's our model.

Since then, the dairy farm has hosted everything from bus tours for cheese tasting, to outdoor concerts. Sjostrum says the state of Minnesota is a great resource for small farms looking to expand into other lines of products, including agri-tourism, and is a necessary ally in getting the permits and regulatory help to grow.

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