Minnesota's Farming Heritage
In July 2000 the Minnesota Zoo opened the Wells Fargo Family Farm to focus attention on the past, present, and possible future of the Minnesota family farm. Since that time, millions have visited the farm to learn about our farming heritage.
Legacy funding is allowing the Zoo to expand the season of the exhibit, improve work done off-season and increase programming at the Farm. The Zoo also launched a farmer’s market. The Zoo teaches and promotes sustainable agriculture practices such as our Farm to Fork program. The Farmers Market is another example of sharing these practices with the community.
A Harvest Festival was developed and launched in the fall of 2011, and continued in 2012. The Harvest Festival provides guests with a personal farm experience celebrating the importance of the fall harvest. The activities supporting these weekends included music, crafts, apple press demonstrations, cow milking demonstrations, butter churning, spinning/weaving demonstrations, and a hay maze for kids.
Laws 2011, 1st Special Session, Chapter 6, Article 4, section 2, Subdivision 7, appropriates $1,500,000 in each year of the FY12-13 biennium to the Minnesota Zoological Board “for programmatic development of the Minnesota Zoo.”
The number of visitors that are at the farm will be measured along with review of comments received. We have taken counts of tram riders during this October Harvest Festival to get a feel for the number of visitors at the farm.The number of vendors and customers participating in the Farmers’ Market will be measured as will compost sales and positive feedback from customers, members and the media.
Laws 2011, 1st Special Session, Chapter 6, Article 4, section 2, Subdivision 7, appropriates $1,500,000 in each year of the FY12-13 biennium to the Minnesota Zoological Board “for programmatic development of the Minnesota Zoo.”
The number of visitors that are at the farm will be measured along with review of comments received. We have taken counts of tram riders during this October Harvest Festival to get a feel for the number of visitors at the farm.The number of vendors and customers participating in the Farmers’ Market will be measured as will compost sales and positive feedback from customers, members and the media.Attendance for the Harvest Festival weekends was 30,718, which attributed to exceeding the Zoo’s attendance goal for the month of October by more than 14%.