2025 Ohio Farm Bureau Impact: By the Numbers
This 2025 By The Numbers report shares some of the public policy achievements and member programs that deliver value to all Ohio Farm Bureau members.
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As farm-to-table offerings have grown in popularity, those outside the ag community have taken notice.
In 2021, Discover Clermont County, a convention and visitors bureau in southwest Ohio, reached out to the agriculture community to ask farmers to be a more public part of the overall experience.
The idea, said Sarah Gleason, marketing and communications manager with Discover Clermont County, was for visitors to have the opportunity to see where the food they loved was sourced.
The pitch?
“I want people to visit your farms, and we have the technology to promote and support this event,” said Gleason.
Now in its fifth year, the Clermont County Food and Farm Tour has become a popular event in the area.
“From a metrics standpoint, the farm tour page on our website is in the top 10% every year,” Gleason said, noting that 5,935 unique visitors downloaded the farm tour guide from the Discover Clermont County website.
Creative partnerships between farmers and the surrounding community are vital to building relationships, and in some cases Ohio Farm Bureau memberships.
When Sarah Ison and her husband, Josh, open their farm to visitors during the Clermont County Food and Farm Tour, they make some extra sales, but that’s not the only reason they participate. They want to give people a chance to see the management practices they use and answer questions about agriculture.
“For us, that’s one of our favorite things, to have those conversations with people,” Sarah Ison said.
Farm tours are not new, and they have a sustained popularity that has become one of the most interactive ways to bridge the divide between farmers and consumers.
Scott Myers, who farms with his wife, Nicole, in Wayne County, has a similar perspective. Their farm was a stop on last year’s Wayne County Farm Tour.
“There were a lot of people from the city who had not been on farms before,” he said.
“That’s one of the reasons we feel it is so important to do this. You want to make sure the non-farming public gets a chance to be on a farm and know where their food comes from.”
Long-standing history
In Wayne County, the tour is a long-standing tradition, explained Lindsay Tournoux, organization director for Ashland, Medina, Summit and Wayne counties. It was originally started in the mid-1960s by a local camera club and was carried forward through the 1970s by a group of leaders in the ag community.
The Wayne County Farm Bureau started organizing the event in 1980 and has rotated the location of the tour through different quadrants of the county every year since, she said. New visitors show up on the tour every year, but some families make the tour an annual outing.
“There are definitely people who follow it because they’ve been going for three generations,” Tournoux said.
Finding farmers to host tour stops each year can be a challenge, but Wayne County Farm Bureau leaders are determined to keep the tour going, Tournoux said. They’ve partnered with the Wayne County Convention and Visitors Bureau, which provides publicity for the tour.
Last year the drive-it-yourself tour was held in October and included stops to several farms
as well as The Ohio State University College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences (CFAES) Wooster, an equipment dealership and historical societies.
This was the fourth time the Myers family hosted a stop on the tour, with their first turn hosting back in the 1980s. “We kind of knew what to expect but it has been interesting to see different people over the years come through,” Scott said.
The Myers family farm, Woodlyn Acres, has evolved over the years as well. Ten years ago, the family transitioned from conventional production to certified organic production and they currently raise corn, soybeans, wheat, hay, sunflowers, oats, barley, rye and peas. Nicole also has a herd of 50 Nigerian Dwarf dairy goats and she makes soap with their milk.
Last year, Scott estimates they had about 2,000 visitors over the two days. Some were neighbors, but most came from nearby cities. They’ve made some lasting connections with visitors over the years, he added.
The Isons, who have hosted a tour stop on the Clermont County tour for the last five years, have also seen a variety of tour guests. On their farm, Flourish and Roam, they raise pastured beef, pork, chicken and lamb, and also run a herd share program that offers raw A2/A2 milk.
Some visitors come from urban areas in nearby Hamilton and Warren counties, Gleason noted, adding that a Friday night cocktail hour on a farm and a Sunday brunch made with products from tour participants were added in 2025 to help turn the tour into a weekend-long affair.
Attracting members
The Clermont County tour has turned out to be a way of attracting Farm Bureau members, Sarah Ison added. Some of the aspiring homesteaders join after they learn about the resources Farm Bureau offers. Farms are required to be members in order to be selected as tour stops, so the tour has brought in some new farmer members as well. Last year the drive-it-yourself tour was held in September and involved 19 farms and food producers.
Another lasting benefit of the tour is strengthened ties within the ag community. Renee Koerner of Big Fish Farms said she didn’t know many other farmers in the area before she became involved with the Clermont County Farm Bureau and the tour. “It has really brought us as a farming community together.”
Big Fish Farms raises sustainable American paddlefish to produce caviar and fish. The tour has helped Koerner introduce caviar to people who have never tasted it before.
The county has a wide variety of small, niche farms and the tour is helping establish the area as a source for specialty products, Koerner said. “We wanted to expose as many people as possible to all the different, interesting agricultural things going on in our county.”
KEY POINTS
- Inviting the public to a farm helps bridge the gap between farmers and consumers, fostering understanding of agriculture.
- Farm tours show the public about where food comes from, promote local agriculture diversity and create networking opportunities among farmers.
- Partnerships between producers and local communities build relationships and can increase Farm Bureau memberships.
WHAT’S NEXT
Have an idea for a farm-community partnership? Contact your local county Farm Bureau and share your idea.
Kelli Milligan Stammen assisted with the creation of this story.
My first recommendation in your journey is to start out with a local farming friend or mentor along with joining an organization like Ohio Farm Bureau.
We’re just so thankful for the Farm Bureau and the foundation for helping put this together. And of course, the Boyert family for the vision they had with this grant. It’s jumping us forward 10 years. It’s unbelievable.
I could not have done it without the resources I have found through Farm Bureau.
It wasn’t until I joined the Wilmington College Collegiate Farm Bureau that I truly saw how my passion could translate into leadership, advocacy and a career.
The issue of property taxation remains as one of the biggest challenges our members face today. Ensuring agricultural property is valued for its agricultural potential and not development is critical to the continued success of Ohio agriculture.
Through the Select Partner program, we became educated in farm insurance and weren't just selling policies. It became more and more clear why farmers need an advocate like Ohio Farm Bureau.
So many of the issues that OFBF and its members are advocating for are important to all Ohioans. I look at OFBF as an agricultural watchdog advocating for farmers and rural communities across Ohio.
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