South Dakota expands agritourism

RAPID CITY, S.D. (KOTA) - Agritourism South Dakota is a two-year program intended for farmers and ranchers to share their operations with visitors.

“It’s so important to know how your food is made, where food comes from. It’s important to know about soil health. It’s important to know just how food is grown healthy,” said Dry Creek Farm and Ranch owner Shawn Freeland.

“We know that people want to have those authentic experiences, and we do have the most authentic farmers and ranchers in our state. And that’s what we found with developing the acre Tourism Program is that we needed to help producers understand how they could do it,” said Agritourism coordinator, Stacy Hadrick, South Dakota State University.

Farmers and ranchers in the program learn the realities of having tourists on their working operations.

“Things from the insurance and liability, like I mentioned, all the way to how do you mark it? How do you find the people? All of those pieces that you would need to develop your business and focus on agritourism,” said Hadrick.

Travel South Dakota has a two-year program designed to help bridge the gap between tourists and farmers. The class is limited to 20 participants all with less than 10 years in agri-tourism. Applications are due Friday, Feb. 17, and the program begins in May.

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