This week marked northern Michigan’s first-ever “Agritourism Summit" hosted by Michigan State University Extension, aimed at getting northern Michigan’s farmers, municipalities, and residents on the same page about agritourism. Leelanau farmer Philip Hallstedt spent months looking forward to the event, and not just because his farm is part of the region’s growing agritourism economy. Hallstedt viewed the summit as an opportunity to pose an existential question: Can agritourism in Michigan ever truly thrive if the state doesn’t have a law protecting farmers from liability?

Hallstedt is a veteran when it comes to agritourism in Leelanau County. He and his wife, Sarah, run Hallstedt Homestead Cherries (HH Cherries), a popular U-pick cherry farm in Northport. In recent years, the farm has garnered national press for its customers-on-the-farm approach, including a visit last year from New York Times Cooking.

The Hallstedts have also been trying for years to bring a new agritourism concept to Leelanau County: “farm stays,” which would allow ag properties to add a limited number of campsites to host overnight guests. Speaking to the Leelanau Ticker in 2021, Hallstedt said farm stays would create a new way for families “to see the workings of a farm” while also adding “an important stable source of revenue to offset the uncertainty of crop production.”

Hallstedt is still hopeful that farm stays could be embraced in Leelanau County. On Thursday, May 23, the Leelanau Township Planning Commission will hold a public hearing to gather public input on a potential zoning text amendment that could allow the concept. Even if farm stays do get the greenlight, though, Hallstedt sees one obstacle that could kill the idea before it ever gets off the ground: the lack of agritourism liability protections in Michigan.

Agritourism has been on the rise in Michigan for years. In 2017, a state “Agricultural Census” showed Michigan’s agritourism revenues to be just shy of $21 million, across 754 different farms. A 2022 update showed a modest increase in businesses participating in agritourism – 836 farms, up 10.88 percent – but also clocked a nearly 170 percent increase in overall revenues, to $56,567,000. The shift has been visible in Leelanau County in the past five years, with new spots like Farm Club opening their doors and older establishments like Jacob’s Farm significantly ramping up their on-farm customer attractions.

Still, Michigan trails most other states when it comes to protections for agritourism businesses. According to the National Agricultural Law Center, it's been 20 years since Kansas “became the first state to enact a liability protection law for farmers and ranchers that offer agritourism activities on their land.” Since then, 30 other states have adopted their own immunity laws to “shield an agritourism business from liability for visitor injuries in certain circumstances.”

Michigan is not one of them.

The result, Hallstedt says, is a high cost of doing business for Michigan agritourism farms. HH Cherries carries $3 million of liability insurance coverage for its U-pick operation alone. Recently, when the Hallstedts began offering small workshops to teach guests how to make sourdough bread, they were quoted $3,000 to provide additional liability coverage.

“These workshops are not covered under our existing $3 million coverage, which is crazy,” Hallstedt says. “And $3,000 is ridiculous for people to mix water, flour and salt into a bowl with their own hands. A law limiting lawsuits would remove this burden.”

“It’s not just the liability coverage,” he adds. “If you get sued and have to defend yourself, it costs way more than the insurance itself. And many farmers just never pursue agritourism because of that risk. Even a single liability occurrence could close a small farm.”

Hallstedt points to Vermont – one of the top states in the country for agritourism – as an example of what Michigan could implement.

“Farmers in Vermont essentially just have to post a sign and say ‘This is a working farm; enter at your own risk’ and people know that, if you get hurt and sue, you’re probably not going to get very far,” he says.

For the past few years, Hallstedt has been banging the drum about liability immunity for agritourism operators. But so far, the political will just hasn’t been there.

“I presented this information to the Michigan Agritourism Association probably six years ago, and they took it to the Michigan Farm Bureau, and the feedback I got was basically, ‘Well, there haven’t been a lot of agritourism lawsuits in the past, so therefore we don’t have a problem.’ But then I’ll go talk to other farmers about some of my ideas for agritourism – like farm stays – and they’ll say, ‘Oh my gosh, the liability would be outrageous; I wouldn’t even consider that.’ So, I don’t think our state leaders are taking into account that Michigan farmers are fearful of the liability of agritourism and the cost to insure it.”

With the Agritourism Summit taking place this week in Traverse City, Hallstedt hoped to find his best avenue yet for conversation around agritourism liability. In addition to local farmers and MSU Extension staffers, the summit’s list of speakers included Kathy Angerer, chief of staff for the Michigan Department of Agriculture & Rural Development; Suzi Spahr, executive director of the North American Farmers’ Direct Marketing Association; and Allan Robinette, chairman of the Michigan Farm Bureau’s direct marketing and agritourism. If anyone could move the needle on Michigan’s agritourism liability protections, Hallstedt reasons, it might just be the people at this summit.

“I just want to ask some pointed questions,” Hallstedt says. “Because every other state that has really seen agritourism flourish, they’ve removed the threat and the cost of lawsuits.”