Everyone Said Farming Was a Dying Business. These 10 Young Farmers Proved Them Wrong — And Their Secrets Work at Any Age

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23 min read

For almost 30 years, the Evans family grew fruit for Britain's supermarkets. At their peak they harvested more than 300 tonnes a year in West Sussex, with 20 permanent staff and over 130 seasonal workers.

And year after year, supermarket pricing squeezed their margins.

In 2019 they walked away. It was their last season growing for supermarkets, and Archie's mother Kathy has described quitting as one of the most awful times of their lives.

Their son Archie had another idea. Today the family sells berries from a refrigerated vending machine at the farm gate, at about 15 to 25% above supermarket standard lines, roughly the price of premium supermarket fruit. In the third year, turnover rose 58% and profit rose 65% on the year before, when the business had only just broken even.

Same family. Same farm. Less fruit. Profit up 65% in a year.

So, is farming a dying business? Selling raw crops to middlemen is struggling badly. But farmers who sell direct, add value and let visitors in are growing, and the 10 young farmers below prove it with real numbers.

The Short Answer

Farming as a commodity business is shrinking: the average U.S. farmer is 58, and farmers get just 11.8 cents of every food dollar. But farming that sells straight to people is growing. U.S. agritourism income rose 33% to $1.26 billion between 2017 and 2022, and value-added sales rose 42%. The 10 young farmers in this article each used one simple secret: sell direct, add value, charge for the experience, build an audience or use other people's land. None of these needs youth. Most of them work even better when you already own land, buildings and a lifetime of know-how.

Young farmer standing in a green crop field, one of the young farmers success stories that prove farming is not dying — A new generation is finding ways to make farming pay. Illustrative photo, not a farmer named in this article. Photo: Unsplash.

Is Farming a Dying Industry? Here's Why So Many People Think So

Let me be straight with you. The people who say farming is dying are not making it up.

Look at the numbers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The country lost 141,733 farms between 2017 and 2022, a drop of 6.9%. Only 43% of farms made a positive net cash farm income in 2022. And in 2024, 86% of family farm households earned more than half their income off the farm.

The median U.S. farm household lost money farming in 2025, and USDA expects the same in 2026. Most farm families rely on off-farm income.

Then there's the food dollar. In 2024, American farmers received just 11.8 cents of every dollar spent on food. The rest went to processing, packing, transport, stores and restaurants.

Infographic of three USDA numbers explaining why people say farming is a dying industry: farmers get 11.8 cents of the food dollar, 57% of farms had no positive net cash income, 86% of farm households rely on off-farm income — Three numbers behind the "farming is dying" story. Sources: USDA ERS and USDA NASS.

And the farmers themselves are getting older, almost everywhere you look.

United States: average producer age 58.1, and only 8.8% of producers are under 35 (2022 Census of Agriculture).
Japan: core farmers average 67.7 years old, and their number fell to about 1.04 million in 2025, roughly a quarter fewer than five years earlier.
Malaysia: 45.6% of agricultural producers are 60 or older, according to the 2024 Agriculture Census.
England: 36.1% of principal farmers are 65 or over, and just 6.8% are under 35 (Defra, 2026).
European Union: only 10.7% of farm managers are under 40.

Bar chart of average farmer age: Japan 67.7 years (2025), United States 58.1 (2022), European Union 57 (2020) and Australia 56 (2015-16) — In these four farming nations, the average farmer is in their late 50s or older.

So yes, the old model is dying: grow more, sell it cheap to whoever is buying, hope prices go up next year. If that's how your farm earns its money, the warning signs are real. (I wrote about this squeeze in Crop Prices Falling? How Farms Are Using Agritourism to Fill the Gap.)

But that's only half the story.

The Part of the Story the Headlines Leave Out

While commodity farms were squeezed, a different kind of farm income was growing fast.

Between 2017 and 2022, U.S. farms sold 57% more food (before inflation) directly to stores, restaurants and schools, reaching $14.2 billion. Sales of value-added products such as cheese, jam and processed meat rose 42% to $5.73 billion. Agritourism and recreation income rose 33% to $1.26 billion.

And here's the part small farmers should read twice. On farms under 10 acres, average agritourism income more than doubled, up 105% to $27,010. Farms under 50 acres now earn a quarter of all U.S. agritourism money. (The full breakdown is in our agritourism statistics guide.)

Grouped bar chart of U.S. farm sales 2017 vs 2022: direct to stores and restaurants up 57% to $14.2 billion, value-added products up 42% to $5.73 billion, direct to consumers $3.26 billion, agritourism up 33% to $1.26 billion — Where farm money moved between 2017 and 2022. Source: USDA 2022 Census of Agriculture.

Young farmers have noticed. In the National Young Farmers Coalition's 2022 survey, which drew more than 10,000 responses, 86.4% of young farmers sold through at least one direct-to-consumer channel. And 78% were first-generation farmers. Most didn't inherit a farm or a buyer, so many had to find their own customers.

And it's linked to survival. USDA research found that beginning farms selling direct to consumers were more likely to survive: 54.3% were still in business five years later (2007 to 2012), against 47.4% of those that didn't sell direct.

Reality Check: Direct Selling Is Not Magic

U.S. direct-to-consumer sales rose 16% in dollars from 2017 to 2022, but fell about 3% after inflation. And in USDA's 2012 data, half of farms with agritourism income made less than $5,000 from it. The farmers in this article win because they do it well: they pick one clear offer, price it properly and tell people about it. Doing it half-heartedly earns half-hearted money. (See Is Agritourism Profitable? for the real spread of results.)

How I Picked These 10 Young Farmers

I wanted proof, not inspiration posters. Every farmer below:

has been covered by a reliable news outlet, government body or award programme between 2021 and 2026
was under 40 when that reporting came out
shows real prices, sales, customer counts or growth you can check (the sources are at the end)
uses a different secret from the others, so you get 10 lessons, not one lesson 10 times

They come from nine countries on five continents. Some sell to tourists. Some never see a tourist at all. Every one of them stopped selling the way their neighbours sell.

Infographic listing the 10 young farmers success stories and the secret each one used, from a fruit vending machine in England to a seedling nursery in Kenya — The 10 young farmers and the one secret each of them proves.

No. 1: Archie Evans, England: Stop Selling to Supermarkets and Sell From a Self-Serve Machine

You met Archie's family at the top of this article. Here's how the machine actually works.

Archie, a Harper Adams agricultural engineering graduate, got the idea from friends who sold milk from a vending machine. The family put a refrigerated, Italian-made vending machine into a shipping container on their farm near Chichester. It cost about £40,000, and solar panels cover about 80% of its power.

Berries on Tap launched in spring 2023. It sells strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, tayberries and figs, and now organic milk, cheese, sorbet and fig ketchup too. Everything comes from within 10 miles.

They don't compete on price. They compete on taste. When South East Farmer visited, Archie tested one of his strawberries at 12 on the Brix sweetness scale. He says the very best supermarket fruit usually scores around 9. On busy weekends Farmers Weekly reported the machine being restocked up to 25 times a day, and local press say customers drive up to 30 miles.

"Trust is everything," Archie told South East Farmer. He was a finalist for Farmers Weekly Young Farmer of the Year in 2024.

Field-Tested Play: Sell While You Work

A farm-gate vending machine, a fridge with an honesty box or a self-serve stand sells while you're out working. Price for quality, not for the supermarket, and tell buyers why your produce is better. Start small: our guide to setting up a farm stand that attracts visitors shows how.

No. 2: Narelle Zanker, Australia: Charge for the Chores City Families Have Never Seen

Narelle Zanker was a teacher for four years. When she was up for promotion, she resigned instead and went home to her parents' dairy farm near Mannum, South Australia.

She didn't build anything first. In May 2024 she and her husband Joel simply put up a social media page for "Dairy Adventures" to test the waters. People immediately started asking to book. Only then, in September 2024, did the farm open to the public.

Here's what visitors pay for, at the prices listed by South Australia's tourism site (Australian dollars):

Feeding Frenzy, $20: families bottle-feed calves, watch about 40 calves drink from a 50-teat feeder, then tour the dairy
Milking Memories, $15: teenagers and adults milk a cow
Elvis Encounter, $15: time with a 600 kg hand-reared Speckle Park steer, the farm's social media star
Graze & Gaze, $50: a sunset picnic beside the herd

The family estimates about 90% of visitors had never set foot on a dairy farm. "It has blown our minds how much people have loved it," Narelle told the Stock Journal.

One of her biggest early hurdles was insurance. She won cover by showing the insurer she could work safely with children and animals. She also asks every visitor for a review in a thank-you message. In September 2026 she won the national AgriFutures Rural Women's Award, taking her bursaries to $35,000 with her earlier state win.

Woman bottle-feeding young dairy calves, the kind of paid farm experience young farmer Narelle Zanker sells — Calf feeding: a daily chore on a dairy farm, and a paid experience for city families. Illustrative photo, not Dairy Adventures. Photo: Unsplash.

Field-Tested Play: Test Demand Before You Spend

Put up a page describing the experience, with a price, before you build anything. If people ask to book, you have a business. If they don't, you've lost nothing. Our 60-minute agritourism test shows how. If animals are involved, read the petting zoo handwashing system first.

No. 3: Kaylee Heap, USA: Build a Ticketed Season Near a Big City

Kaylee Heap grew up in a suburb with no farm background and planned to be an accountant. Then she met her husband Kevin, who ran a small farmstand in front of his parents' house in Minooka, Illinois, about an hour south of Chicago.

Together they turned that farmstand into Heap's Giant Pumpkin Farm. It sits on top of a corn and soybean farm, close to two major highways, and the growth let Kevin come back to farm full-time.

Today it's a full fall destination: 25+ acres of u-pick pumpkins, sunflowers, corn and soybean mazes, hayrides, a haunted corn maze, school tours, and partnerships with local farms for pork and beef and with local breweries for a pumpkin ale.

The 2026 prices on the farm's website:

Admission: $9 Monday to Thursday, $14 Friday to Sunday
Haunted corn maze: $25
Fast Pass evening ticket: $37
Open daily from September 13 to October 31

During COVID they switched to timed tickets sold online in advance. Farms.com reported it worked better than expected, and Kaylee says online tickets give them an idea in advance of interest in each activity.

Why bother with all this on a grain farm? She told Reuters: "If we just focused on row crops, we'd be having a different conversation."

Field-Tested Play: Sell Tickets, Not Just Pumpkins

A short, ticketed season can earn more than the crop it sits on. Sell timed tickets online so you know your numbers before the weekend. Start with our step-by-step guide on how to start a pumpkin patch, and see how a concrete contractor's weekend patch grew to 150,000+ visitors a year in the Kuipers Family Farm case study.

Pumpkins and hay bales at a farm in autumn, the setting for ticketed pumpkin patch agritourism — A short fall season, sold with timed tickets, can out-earn the field it sits on. Illustrative photo, not Heap's Giant Pumpkin Farm. Photo: Unsplash.

No. 4: "Farmer Phil" Stewart, Ireland: Build an Audience First, Then Sell It Beef

Philip Stewart's family has farmed in County Longford since 1938. In 2016 he started a YouTube channel, first with farming video games, then filming real work on the farm.

By January 2026 the channel had nearly 97,000 subscribers and about 63 million views. He also has around 59,000 TikTok followers and 46,000 on Instagram.

Then he gave that audience something to buy. In February 2021 he opened a farm shop in a converted shed, selling the farm's own beef, local produce and merchandise. Beef boxes ship nationwide in wool-insulated boxes. Every pack carries a batch number, so you can look up the animal's tag, breed, age and photo on the website.

Agriland reported that most of the shop's sales come from his online followers. The farm has since added a sunflower trail, a maize maze and a pumpkin patch, and got planning permission for a farm shop and café.

His rule for making videos without losing the farm: "I film around working; I don't work around filming."

Field-Tested Play: Film the Work You Already Do

You don't need to perform. Film calving, harvest, a broken tractor, a sunset. One honest video a week builds trust, and trust is what turns a viewer into a buyer. Learn the basics in how to use YouTube to market your farm and Instagram for agritourism: what actually works.

No. 5: Kaisa Sasaki, Japan: Sell a Night Out, Not a Punnet of Strawberries

In a country where the average core farmer is 67.7, Kaisa Sasaki was 25 and in his third year of farming when a consortium backed by Japan's farm ministry profiled him in 2026.

His family grows rice in Chiba City. He dropped out of a business degree after COVID moved classes online, worked a season on the family rice farm, then did Chiba City's one-year new-farmer training. He used subsidies to build a greenhouse and opened FUN DAY FARM STRAWBERRY in January 2025.

He noticed that young people in Chiba City had very few places to go at night. So he built one. His farm runs night strawberry picking with music, lighting and occasional DJ events. It has become a date-night spot.

The prices on the farm's website:

Night picking: ¥5,000 for adults
Daytime picking: ¥3,500 on weekdays, ¥4,000 at weekends
VIP tables with two varieties reserved for VIP guests: ¥500 extra by day, ¥1,000 at night

He calls the farm a "store", not a field, and keeps it spotless. He even pressure-washes the weed sheets every season. His goal, in his words: "I want to create a worldview that resonates with young people."

Visitor picking ripe strawberries into a punnet at a pick-your-own strawberry farm — Strawberry picking is old news. Strawberry picking as a night out is not. Illustrative photo, not FUN DAY FARM. Photo: Unsplash.

Field-Tested Play: Fill a Gap in Your Town

Ask: what's missing near me? A date-night spot, a quiet morning walk, a kids' birthday venue, a sunset picnic? Then wrap your crop around that need. The same crop can sell for far more when it comes with an evening. Our guide to the signature experience formula shows how to design one.

No. 6: Azwan Zainudin, Malaysia: Turn Your Surplus Into a Product and Sell It on TikTok

Azwan Zainudin, a former school administrative assistant, ran a roadside food stall, then a café and restaurant. COVID forced him to close.

In 2020 he bought 100 ducks with his own savings, "merely as a hobby," he told Bernama. He also worked part-time as a personal driver to help keep the farm running.

His breakthrough came from surplus eggs. He brined them into salted eggs, which last longer and are easier to sell. He now sells fresh eggs, salted eggs and duck meat to restaurant chains, including in Kuala Lumpur, as well as factories and markets, and online through Shopee and TikTok.

The numbers, as reported by Malaysia's national news agency in December 2025:

About 1,000 laying ducks on 1.15 hectares, with two part-time workers
A second farm in Jelebu producing up to 3,000 meat ducks a month
Nearly RM2 million in sales in 2025
30 duck eggs sell for RM30

He's now planning an agro-tourism farm where visitors can experience duck farming. His advice: "Do not be afraid of failure because every setback offers valuable experience."

Field-Tested Play: Your Waste Is Someone's Product

What do you sell cheap, give away or throw out? Bruised fruit becomes jam. Small eggs become salted eggs. Culls become sausages. A value-added product lasts longer, ships further and sells for more. See creating unique farm products to boost revenue, and check the rules in selling food on your farm first.

No. 7: Jenny Butcher and Wes Kuntz, Canada: Process It Yourself and Become the Town's Local Food Shop

In 2008, Jenny Butcher and Wes Kuntz rented a barn, milked 20 cows and lived in a trailer, while both kept full-time jobs. They had walked away from Wes's family dairy business with nothing financially. "It made no sense doing what we did," Jenny told Harrowsmith magazine.

In 2011 they bought a run-down property south of Brantford, Ontario, with an old abattoir, a broken barn and piles of abandoned cars. Wes quit his job to fix it.

Their first brand, "Tanbark Jersey Creamery", didn't connect with anyone. So Jenny cut the words "Little Brown Cow" out of plywood, and the new name stuck.

Today they process all of their Jersey milk on the farm into cheese curds, cheeses and full-fat milk. Their "Campfire Cheese" is shaped like a marshmallow, for roasting. In 2017 they opened a "Local Food Emporium" in a nearby building, selling their own milk, beef and honey alongside other local farmers' food and meals from an in-store kitchen.

The results, as reported in 2021 and 2022: about 5,000 to 5,500 shoppers a week, about 55,000 farm visitors in six years, and business that tripled from the first day of the COVID lockdown. In 2021 they were one of two national winners of Canada's Outstanding Young Farmers program.

Field-Tested Play: Fill Your Shelves With Your Neighbours

One farm can't stock a whole shop. Ten farms can. Sell your neighbours' eggs, honey and vegetables beside your own, and your shop becomes worth the drive. And if your farm name doesn't stick, change it. See how Applecrest went from 90% wholesale to 80% retail in the Applecrest case study.

No. 8: Tom Stinton, England: Share-Farm With Owners Who Are Ready to Slow Down

This one is for every reader over 60. Please read it twice.

Tom Stinton had no farming family and no money for land. He started keeping sheep at 13 by volunteering at a community farm.

Then, in 2021, Maggie and Quentin Edwards, both 69, decided to look for a share farmer for their Wiltshire farm. "We realise the physical demands of keeping cattle will, in time, be beyond us," Maggie said. Tom won the place by presenting a business plan at interview.

Here's how it works. Two sets of accounts run side by side, and profits are shared. Quentin brings the land, buildings and expertise. Tom brings new ideas, energy and skills.

The results: their Red Poll herd grew from 35 cattle to more than 200, described as the largest organic Red Poll herd in Britain. Tom sells organic beef and lamb through a self-serve farm-gate shop, online, from a refurbished catering trailer at local markets three times a week, and through village shops. He was named South West Farmer Awards Young Farmer of the Year in 2023, and was a Farmers Weekly finalist in 2024.

Field-Tested Play: You Can Be the Land Side of the Deal

If your knees, your back or your calendar are the limit, you don't have to sell up. A share-farming or joint-venture deal lets a young farmer bring the energy while you keep the farm, the income and your say. Put it in writing, with a solicitor. Our free agritourism business plan template helps you test any new partner's plan.

No. 9: Angus Grant, New Zealand: Farm Land You Don't Own

Angus Grant grew up in central Christchurch. No farm. As a primary school kid he ran an egg round from a playhouse his dad turned into a chicken coop, delivering by bike every Friday.

He saved the egg money and bought his first 50 ewes in his early teens.

By 21, he was grazing 800 to 1,000 sheep on about 25 blocks of other people's land, roughly 100 hectares in total. Empty house sections. Earthquake "red zone" land. Commercial sites waiting for builders. A paddock next to Christchurch Airport. He drives about 35,000 km a year between them.

How did he get the land? "Mostly I just knock on the door, or people refer me or something," he told 1News.

Britain's most famous young farmer started the same way. Kaleb Cooper, of Clarkson's Farm, sold eggs at 13, bought his first tractor at 15 and started contracting at 16.

Reality Check: Fame Is Not the Business Plan

The Independent reported in 2025 that Kaleb Cooper's TV production company held about £960,000 in assets, while his contracting and holding companies made about £100,000 in combined profit. Television, not tractors, looks like the bigger money. Copy his start (small, direct, consistent), not his fame.

Field-Tested Play: Idle Land Is Money Waiting

If you own grass you don't graze, it can earn rent from a young grazier who keeps it tidy. If you need land, start knocking on doors. Neither side needs a big farm. See how much land you really need for agritourism.

No. 10: Gideon Kiprotich, Kenya: Sell What Other Farmers Need, and Never Borrow

Gideon Kiprotich graduated in special-needs education in 2018, then chose farming over a classroom. He started on a quarter acre of family land in Kericho with Sh25,000 of savings and a nursery measuring 5 metres by 3.

His secret: instead of competing with every other vegetable grower, he sold to them. He raised seedlings (kale and cabbage at Sh2 each) for small and commercial farmers in about seven counties, and took orders over WhatsApp and online.

When Kenya's Daily Nation profiled him in 2021, at 26, his nursery had grown from 5,000 to about 40,000 seedlings a month. He'd added two greenhouses, costing about Sh100,000 with irrigation, for tomatoes and capsicum. They averaged about 150 kg of capsicum a week at Sh150 a kilo, and he said he made about Sh90,000 a month from the two greenhouses.

He says he has grown the business by reinvesting his profits. "I have never taken a loan from any financial institution," he said.

Field-Tested Play: Own Your Customer List

A WhatsApp list of customers who already trust you is worth more than any advert. Message them before every harvest. Start with what you have, sell before you scale, and let each sale pay for the next step. Read you don't need $100,000 to start agritourism.

The 10 Young Farmers Side by Side

Farmer	Where	The secret	The proof
Archie Evans	England	Self-serve fruit vending machine	Turnover +58%, profit +65% in year three
Narelle Zanker	Australia	Paid hands-on dairy experiences	$15 to $50 per experience; 2026 national award
Kaylee Heap	USA	Ticketed fall season near a city	$9 to $14 entry; evening tickets to $37
Philip "Farmer Phil" Stewart	Ireland	Audience first, then farm shop	~97,000 YouTube subscribers; most shop sales from followers
Kaisa Sasaki	Japan	Night strawberry picking	¥5,000 night tickets
Azwan Zainudin	Malaysia	Salted eggs sold on TikTok and Shopee	Nearly RM2 million in 2025 sales
Jenny Butcher and Wes Kuntz	Canada	On-farm processing and local food shop	~5,000 to 5,500 shoppers a week
Tom Stinton	England	Share-farming with retiring owners	Herd grew from 35 to 200+
Angus Grant	New Zealand	Grazing other people's land	~1,000 sheep on ~25 blocks
Gideon Kiprotich	Kenya	Seedlings for other farmers, no loans	~Sh90,000 a month from two greenhouses

Why These Secrets Work Even Better at 45, 55 or 65

Here's what nobody tells you about young farmers. Their two biggest problems are things you may already have solved.

In the National Young Farmers Coalition survey, 59% of young farmers said finding affordable land to buy was very or extremely challenging, and 41% said the same about access to money. 57% rely on rented land.

Now look at what you probably have: land, sheds, a tractor, a road frontage, neighbours who know you, and decades of stories about how food is really grown. Visitors pay for those stories.

Age is no barrier to this kind of farming either. In USDA's 2007 data, operators aged 65 or older ran 40.4% of U.S. agritourism farms.

And notice how many of the 10 leaned on an older generation. Narelle runs her business on her parents' dairy. "If it wasn't for my parents, none of this would be happening," she told InDaily. Tom's share-farm exists because a couple in their late 60s opened the gate. Kaylee's business grew out of a farmstand in front of her in-laws' house.

The young farmers bring energy and phones. You bring the stage. That's a powerful partnership, whether it's with your own children or someone else's. (If you can only give it weekends, read can part-time farmers succeed in agritourism?)

The Same Secrets Work on My Durian Farm in Malaysia

I run Bloopy Durians in Bentong, Malaysia, which I started not long after COVID. Our durian seasons are short, about four to five months a year in total, from December to February and June to August. That's a tight window, a bit like Kaylee's pumpkin season.

Three of the secrets in this article are exactly what keep us going:

Be easy to find. Many of our visitors find us on Google. We come up top for searches like "eat Musang King", and during durian season we get up to 100 visitors a week.
Own your customer list. Like Gideon, we keep a WhatsApp list of loyal customers who buy whenever durians are available. It's a reliable source of income.
Sell to groups, not just individuals. We supply durians for corporate events, including a Mayor of Kuala Lumpur tourism event, for which Kuala Lumpur City Hall gave our team a plaque of appreciation. Taylor's University and TAR UMT have each sent a busload of students to the farm.

None of this needed a big budget. It needed a clear offer and a way for people to find it. That's why I started AgritourismSuccess.com: to show other farmers how to do the same. (If you want the Google side of this, read how to turn Google into a 24/7 customer machine.)

Your 30-Day Plan to Borrow a Young Farmer's Secret

You don't need to copy all 10. You need one. Use this flowchart to pick it.

Flowchart to choose which young farmer secret to copy first, based on whether you have spare land, crops that sell cheap, visitors nearby or a story to tell — Pick the one secret that fits what your farm already has.

Then give yourself 30 days:

Week 1: Pick one secret and one offer. Write it in one sentence with a price, like "Calf feeding for families, $20 a person, Saturdays at 10am."
Week 2: Test demand before you spend. Post it on Facebook, send it to 20 people on WhatsApp, or put a sign at the gate. Count who asks to book, like Narelle did.
Week 3: Sort the paperwork. Call your insurer and check the permits for what you plan to sell (see the questions below).
Week 4: Run one small, paid session. Sell tickets in advance like Kaylee, ask every guest for a review, and film it like Farmer Phil.

If you want ideas to choose from, our list of 50 agritourism activities ranked by startup cost and profit is the place to start. And when you're ready to price it properly, see how much it costs to start an agritourism business.

Before You Copy Them: The Legal and Insurance Questions to Ask

Every secret in this article changes your risk. A visitor on your land, a jar of jam with your label, a video of someone's child: each one comes with rules. I'm not a lawyer, and this isn't legal advice. But these are the questions to put to your insurer, your local council and a solicitor before you start.

Does my farm insurance cover visitors? Agritourism may be excluded under a standard farm policy, and insurers may require a separate commercial policy. Ask your agent to confirm cover in writing. (Start with what agritourism insurance covers and costs.)
Does my state have an agritourism liability law, and what does it require? Over half of U.S. states have one, and most require specific warning signs. Many of these laws don't protect you if you were negligent. (See our agritourism laws by state guide.)
Can I legally sell this food? In the U.S., meat sold to the public must be slaughtered under USDA or state inspection, and every state's cottage food law sets its own limits. In the UK, food businesses must register with the council at least 28 days before trading. In Malaysia, food handlers need Ministry of Health-recognised training and an anti-typhoid vaccination.
Do I need a permit for a vending machine or farm shop? Ask your local council and health department before you buy the machine.
Can I film and post my visitors? Penn State Extension advises getting permission from anyone who can be identified, and taking extra care with children. In the UK and Malaysia, data protection law can apply to footage of identifiable people, so ask a solicitor.
Does my lease or share-farming deal allow this? Farm Commons, a farm law nonprofit, strongly recommends a written lease. Check whether yours allows visitors, events, signs and a farm stand, and who owns any improvements when it ends.

Reality Check: Paperwork Is Cheaper Than a Claim

For Narelle Zanker, one of the biggest early hurdles wasn't customers. It was insurance. Sort this out in week three, not after your first visitor slips.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is farming a dying industry?

Commodity farming is under real pressure: the U.S. lost 6.9% of its farms between 2017 and 2022, and farmers receive just 11.8 cents of the food dollar. But farm sales through direct and local channels, value-added products and agritourism grew over the same period. The business model is changing, not dying.

How do young farmers make money?

Mostly by cutting out middlemen. In the National Young Farmers Coalition's 2022 survey, 86.4% of young farmers sold direct to consumers. The 10 farmers in this article use vending machines, farm shops, paid experiences, ticketed seasons, value-added products, social media and other people's land.

What percentage of farmers are young?

In the U.S., 8.8% of producers were under 35 in 2022, with an average age of 28.6 among them. In England, 6.8% of principal farmers are under 35. In the European Union, 10.7% of farm managers are under 40.

Can you start agritourism at 50 or 60?

Yes. Older farmers already run a big share of agritourism farms. In USDA's 2007 data, operators aged 65 or older ran 40.4% of U.S. agritourism farms. Older farmers often already have the land, buildings and stories that young farmers struggle to get.

Which young farmer secret is cheapest to copy?

Testing demand with a Facebook page or a WhatsApp message costs almost nothing, as Narelle Zanker proved. Building a customer list and filming the work you already do are also close to free.

Do I need insurance to let visitors on my farm?

In most cases you should have it, and a standard farm policy may not cover paying visitors. Ask your insurer to confirm in writing what is covered before your first guest arrives.

Do these ideas work outside the U.S. and UK?

Yes. This list includes farmers in Japan, Malaysia, Kenya, Canada, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand. The offer changes from country to country, but the principle of selling direct and selling the experience works everywhere.

The Real Lesson: Farming Isn't Dying. Selling Cheap Is.

Look back at the 10. Not one of them grew more of the same thing and hoped for a better price. They changed who they sold to, what they sold and how people found them.

You can do that too. You have the land. You have the know-how. All you need is the first step.

Find out which secret fits your farm best. Take the free quiz, then grab the blueprint.

Take the Free Farm Readiness Quiz

Download the Free 21-Point Agritourism Blueprint

P.S. Remember the Evans family? They didn't grow more fruit to save their farm. They grew less, sold it straight to people who wanted it, and grew their profit 65% in a single year. The quiz takes a few minutes and shows you where your farm's version of that machine is hiding.

Stephen Loke of AgritourismSuccess.com, whose farm is featured in Bloomberg News and Asahi Shimbun. This article is for general education only and is not legal, tax, insurance or financial advice. Prices and figures come from the sources below and may have changed since they were published.