“The fight to save family farms isn’t just about farmers. It’s about making sure that there is a safe and healthy food-supply for all of us. It’s about jobs, from Main Street It’s about a better America.” -Willie Nelson, President, Farm Aid to Wall Street.

I strongly believe in the family-farm, I am a proponent of trying to buy as many foods within a 100 mile radius of our homes as possible. In servicing the local rural community, we are not only helping our neighbors, but we are arming ourselves with a profound knowledge…what exactly it is you and your family are ingesting. With spinach being yanked off market shelves for fear of E Coli, pesticides and herbicides are commonly misted all over that tomato you just fed to your toddler, or the apples in which an elderly grandmother just bought a bag of and is concocting her famous pie. It is troubling that in most cases we have no idea where that produce came from or how it got to our plates. If our bodies are our temples shouldn’t we start to really take accountability as to the history of anything we place in our mouths? Start now, start today by taking your family on the Kaw Valley Farm Tour, not only will you learn an abundant amount about what it takes to be a family farmer in the 21^st century, you’ll probably have a ruckuses time as well.

After all when Mother Nature is your boss employment can most assuredly be a gamble. The weather is rarely cooperating from year to year we are witnessing extremes of too hot, too cold, no rain, too much wind, no wind at all, a drought, an infestation of bugs, a new undiscovered disease, even with that litany of what-if’s that is not the most challenging of circumstances for the family farmer. It is rather their competition, the corporate farms. Most family farmers today have to possess an extremely flexible attitude about their livelihood in order to compete with the large government and corporate-owned farms that have changed the rural landscape. In fact, the traditional family farm of yesteryear has become a bygone relic. In its place family farmers have had to step off their tractors and onto the stage turning their once serene acreage into a multiplex of games, rides and activities bustling with nostalgic simple fun. The once lonely isolated life of farming where in history a farmer could spend an entire day in the field never seeing another human soul has dramatically changed to the family farmer-playing host to hay rides, petting zoos and corn mazes.

It is reminiscent for many people to spend the day in the country; it might remind them of their own youth or spending summers at a grandparent’s house, or simply what good, fresh air smells like. The farm tour is an ideal vehicle in which to enjoy an entire weekend on dirt roads, picking apples, pumpkins and gourds and soaking in an alternative lifestyle. This year the tour boasts 14 farms, loads of agritainment (agriculture and entertainment together) and activities galore. From viewing a working elk ranch first hand, to milking goats and making soaps, to live music, to coming home with an armful of nutritious, delicious bounty that you know exactly where it grew and how it was cultivated, the tour really has something for everyone. Sharon Vesecky, owner of Vesecky Family Farm, says of the tour, “The guests have the opportunity to see the rural way of life. Some will reminisce about farm memories others want children/grandchildren to experience a little bit of farm living and see how food is produced. On our farm participants will see broad-breasted white turkeys and heritage turkeys. We will have a quilting demonstration, a petting zoo, and a lot of fresh air and rural atmosphere.”

Darrel Zimmerman, owner of Zimmerman Kill Creek Farm, welcomes visitors to his property that express an appreciation for what they do on his farm, he states, “That is really quite rewarding when people express gratitude, those visitors will also experience an award-winning historic barn, thousands of pumpkins, a blacksmith, a saw mill, basket weavers, civil war rein-actors and horse-drawn wagon rides.” The art of agritainment is definitely not lost on these entrepreneurial farmers, if you want a successful business in agriculture anymore you often have to be willing to do a lot more than merely sow your fruits, tend to the crop and transport the harvest to vendors. Farm tours are cropping up all over this quilt-like countryside of ours, it is a good thing to help remind people that food does not just magically appear but calloused hands and aching backs of dedicated land tenants are to thank for keeping a belly full. At Screamin’ Oaks Farm, owner Roxane McCoy, has many great activities planned to lure young and old, she explains, “Various children’s activities will be available like cookie decorating, learning how to make a bar of goat milk soap, how to spin mohairs, learn the history of the Kansas Sunflower and take some seeds home for planting, samples of goat milk cheeses, plus viewing the milking process in the Milk House.”

The partakers are peppered throughout our changing autumn landscape, promising for breath-taking country drives from farm to farm, spreading from DeSoto, to Baldwin City, Lawrence, Tonganoxie, Basehor, McLouth, to Winchester, Overbrook and Eudora. So, load up the family, pack a few picnic blankets, and have the memory card on empty for the camera. The weekend should be a great way to make memories, catch a glimpse of a butterfly, roast a marshmallow or two and get caught up on a rural lifestyle that might just corral us all into a simpler, slower and more appreciative weekend that has been a long time coming.

Did you know?

· The number of farmers under the age of 25 has decreased 50% in the last decade.

· 20% of American jobs have ties to Agriculture.