In 2019, Good Earth Farm owners Nancy and Jeff Kirstein had to make a decision. The barn on their Lennox-based property, originally constructed in 1897, needed attention.
“We decided we either need to save the barn or let it go, and we made the decision to save it,” Nancy Kirstein said.
Now beautifully restored, the barn serves as a backdrop for Good Earth Farm’s summer events, which include hosting weddings and special events and serving homemade oven-fired pizzas made with locally sourced ingredients.
“We make everything outside so people can watch the entire process,” Nancy said. “It’s really fun. People see it’s all handmade.”
While there, people can also interact with the 25-odd animals on the property, ranging from cows, pigs, goats, a pony, chickens, ducks and geese. People can also get a close look at how Good Earth grows its flowers and vegetables.
“We get to tell people what these animals are and how they live. It’s kind of weird to think people don’t have that kind of exposure around us, but they really don’t,” Nancy said.
The Kirsteins bought the property in 2011 and started a community supported agriculture program, selling what they grew. After years of dealing with thin profit margins and unpredictable growing conditions, Kirstein explored diversifying.
Around the same time, and while renovating their barn, Nancy Kirstein learned about the AgritourismSD program being hosted by SDSU Extension. Kirstein said the two-year cohort class helped her build relationships in the industry and understand how agritourism operations work.
“You’ve got the agricultural part of it, which is challenging enough, and then you’re also inviting other people to be a part of it,” she said. “It gave a lot of support to understand what might work for us and what we’re comfortable with.”
The National Agricultural Law Center defines agritourism as “a form of commercial enterprise that links agricultural production and/or processing with tourism to attract visitors onto a farm, ranch or other agricultural business for the purposes of entertaining and/or educating the visitors while generating income for the farm, ranch or business owner.”
Peggy Schlechter, SDSU Extension Community Vitality Program Director, said agritourism presents a unique opportunity to combine aspects of South Dakota’s two top industries: tourism and agriculture.
Networking, community support and continuing education are all important components of successful agritourism operations, Schlechter said, and SDSU Extension works to aid producers in those areas.
To start, Schlechter tries to help people decide whether agritourism is the right fit for their operation. She encourages interested producers to look at what they are already doing, what resources they have – including how much time they can invest – and start small.
“Start small with what you’re good at and connect it to what you are doing in agriculture, because part of agritourism is educating people about agriculture and what you’re an expert in,” Schlechter said.
SDSU Extension community vitality also hosts agritourism webinars and a statewide agritourism workshop every other year. One of their long-term projects includes a “rural road trip” trail along U.S. Highway 14, which runs about 1,445 miles across the country from Chicago, Illinois, to the eastern entrance of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, passing through many South Dakota communities along the way, including Brookings, De Smet, Huron, Miller, Highmore, Pierre, Philip, Wall and Sturgis.
Schlechter described many of South Dakota’s visitors as “road trippers,” and Highway 14 is a well-traveled route. Developing stops across the state enhances visitors’ experience and encourages them to stay longer. For agritourism producers, it’s a chance to show off rural South Dakota.
“Rural life in South Dakota is unique, and for a lot of people is completely foreign,” Schlechter said.
Beth Simonson in Highmore embraced that idea by creating an annual event to showcase her region’s prettiest crop: sunflowers. She started in 2023 with a sunflower photo shoot. The next year, she launched her daylong Sunflower Festival, which includes guided sunflower field tours and maps of fields for people to visit.
Held in August, this year’s event drew more than 500 people from at least 14 states. One couple came from Louisiana just for the event after seeing a public TV program about it.
“That is what we want. They are coming to South Dakota for agriculture,” Simonson said.
Another alumna of the first AgritourismSD cohort, Simonson is also an avid attendee of the SDSU Extension Energize conferences. Her idea for the sunflower festival started at the first Energize she attended in De Smet, where a speaker talked about a festival in a small town like hers. Since then, she has attended six Energize conferences and spoken at four, encouraging others to follow their ideas.
“My dreams have been fueled and inspired by the SDSU Extension programs that I have been a part of,” she said.
