In recent years, extreme heat, heavy rain, extreme cold, droughts, and severe weather have been a common occurrence in North Carolina. As many farmers look to agritourism as a way to diversify their incomes and overcome the effects of these weather conditions and events on their crops, it is also imperative to have a plan for how weather can impact the visitors to your farm.
As agritourism becomes a more viable option for farms, the human element mixed with the increasing natural events can create additional headaches. Below we have outlined some resources and planning necessities to support sound preparations for your agritourism activities. Whether small group visits, large-scale events or overnight stays, it is necessary to have emergency plans in place and a staff that is briefed on these practices.
General Planning Resources
Having safety plans compiled, reviewed by all staff, and updated at least annually is critical to timely decision-making and ensuring the safety of staff, visitors, and your farm property and products. Below are several general resources on safety plans for inclement or severe weather. Ensure that staff all understand the common language used for various weather events (e.g., watch, warning, advisory).
- Ohio State AgritourismReady: Agritourism Emergency Preparedness (link)
- University of Minnesota Extension: Emergency and crisis planning - What every agritourism farm should have in place (link)
- Safe Agritourism has a variety checklists on emergency planning (link)
- NC Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services:
Overnight Stay Resources
While most of the resources above are good for agriculture and agritourism day activities, it is important, if you host overnight visitors, to think about emergency plans that guests can access for:
- Cabins or in hard shelters: Rent Responsibly (link) has resources that are helpful for these types of operations
- Campsites:
If there is a threat of severe weather while someone has booked a stay, make sure to emphasize reviewing these plans, and if the forecast looks particularly dangerous, cancelling these plans is always acceptable, but make sure language in booking states something to that effect.
Events
If you are an agritourism farm with larger events or pre-selling tickets to activities and events, make sure to have a clear process in place here.
Event Cancellation - When to Make the Call:
- You should have an inclement weather plan that outlines this or at least provides enough guidance to make the safe decisions.
- It’s always good practice for special events to have backup dates or makeup days especially if ticket sales are part of the event. Refunds should be a last resort.
- Weather expectations: Depending on the venue size, a covered area should be available for relief from extreme temperatures (cold/heat) and rain, but note that these are not necessarily considered emergency shelters with the threat of high winds or lightning. Thunderstorms with lightning activity present a need for an interior space within a fully enclosed building. The second-best emergency shelter option for lightning would be vehicles with fully enclosed metal roofs.
- Remember, if a storm presents during the event, it will take time to 1) notify staff and attendees to take shelter and then 2) for everyone to reach the designated shelter, so factor in that time when making the decision.
- It may be of value to research and invest in real-time weather monitoring and warning subscription services.
- Heat is the most persistent culprit of events. The North Carolina Climate Office and the NC Division of Public Health have quite a few helpful resources on heat in NC and its impacts.
Whatever you do, having a plan in place to fall back on is most important. Do you have resources that you have created or found useful for your on-farm events? Let us know tourismextension@ncsu.edu.
