In big or small ways, COVID-19 has impacted aspects of farming and agribusiness. Safety, health, and wellness have become necessary concerns for all farm operations. Inviting the public to an agricultural operation for activities requires farm businesses to take additional safety measures for employees and customers. The focus of this guide is agritourism, but the concepts are the same across retail agriculture – whether a farm market, farmers market, pick-your-own operation and related.

Agritourism Guidance for Operations During COVID-19 – Web

This is part 3 of 3 sections from the Minnesota Fruit & Vegetable conference.

Looking at trends can be a great way to determine next steps for agritourism at the farm level. This section will help you gain new ideas and help explain what is happening in the agritourism industry across the country.

Many of us get excited about trends quickly. We want to plan a new event, or add a new activity to the farm. But, wait! There are many decisions to make before determining if an activity is best suited for your specific farm. We’ll review a decision making chart for use with your farm team to be sure you are analyzing each activity and choosing the ones that best fit your farming operation.

Find out more information through the links below for use to get ideas for your farm based on today’s trends in agritourism and a guide to decision making for agritourism activities.

– 2021 – Agritourism Trends & Activities – Handout Activities to be used with the farm management team

– 2021 – Agritourism Trends & Activities Slides from the presentation

This is part 2 of 3 sections from the conference.

Marketing is a difficult task. Writing a comprehensive marketing plan is a difficult task. So, we’ve provided a format to make this a one-pager! Yes, you’ll have lots of other notes, but this one-page marketing plan will help you focus and take action for the coming season at the farm.

To implement this plan, we encourage you to think about all aspects of your farm in terms of engaging customers through the five senses. The presentation reviews things you can do at the farm, and even gives specific ideas to help you think of customers and marketing in new ways.

Find out more information through the links below for use to develop a one page marketing plan for your farm.

– 2021 – Marketing and senses – Minnesota – Handout Activities to be used with the farm management team

– 2021 – Marketing and senses – Minnesota Slides from the presentation

This is part 1 of 3 sections from the conference.

Customer service is the brand in action. Knowing what customers think of you and how they interpret your image is a great way to start a plan to improve customer service at  your farm this coming season.

There are four steps to providing excellent, awesome customer service:

1. Prepare – Write a plan, train and empower employees.
2. Respond & Mitigate – Understand it is a long term relationship, not just about the issue at hand. Fix things. Respond on social media.
3. Recover – Have a plan for potential customer service fails. Designate who is in charge. Communicate.
4. Improve Practices – Update the plan. Prepare for next time. Anticipate future customer service issues.

Find out more information through the links below for use to develop a customer service plan for your farm.

–  2021 – Awesome Customer Service – Minnesota – Handout Activities to be used with the farm management team

– 2021 – Awesome Customer Service – Minnesota Slides from the presentation