Agricultural activities can be dangerous if safety is not taken seriously. As the weather becomes nicer, farms will be offering activities for families of all ages to attend.

The Childhood Agricultural Safety Network (CASN) recently hosted a webinar to discuss the importance of keeping families safe in agriculture, including young children.

CASN provides resources to help farmers, business owners and parents make safe decisions for everyone involved. They have launched a wide variety of educational campaigns, including a lawnmower campaign to help adults determine if a child is ready to use a lawnmower.

Suzi Spahr, executive director for NAFDMA, the International Agritourism Association, joined CASN for this presentation, speaking about their role in keeping children safe in agritourism activities.

Agritourism, as Spahr explained, “is messy,” as everyone has their own unique definition of the term. Spahr defined agritourism as “anything that has to do with the farm selling directly to a consumer … or an agricultural entity bringing people onto the farm.” These events can range from weddings to U-pick operations.

NAFDMA hosts networking events, educational sessions and conferences to further educate their members. Spahr has noticed that many farms turn to agritourism as a new income source. This could be because a new generation is added to their working unit, so a new revenue source is needed “in order to sustain multiple family units working and living on the farm” or because the farm’s basic commodity is no longer making enough income to sustain the business.

As these farms work to incorporate agritourism, a lot of them are starting from scratch and need to use what’s available to them. For example, if there’s an extra house on their farm property, they may rent it out as an Airbnb. If they grow apples already, they may open up a plot for U-pick fruit.

NAFDMA is very hands-on with their members, and as an organization, is “working to define what we’re calling recommended standards,” Spahr said. She explained how farmers continue to create their own events to offer to the public, but there are some concerns for the safety of the attendees.

NAFDMA helps its members “start to think about what could be potential problems on their farm,” spreading awareness throughout the organization. They want to discover the most successful and safest agritourism options for farmers and set safety standards “to make the industry really great for anyone involved.”

For more information on how to make your farm safer for visitors, visit cultivatesafety.org/casn or nafdma.com.

by Kelsi Devolve