Turn your farmyard into a golf course

Farmersgolf, invented in the Netherlands, creates a golf course in and around your farmyard, extending into the pasture if you wish. The club is a wooden shoe on a stick and the ball is a like a small soccer ball. You don’t need groomed greens, just a few holes and flags placed here and there.

Doug Hennigar has one of only three (for now) Farmersgolf franchises in Canada. Hennigar runs a farmers market in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley, and uses Farmersgolf to strengthen his agritourism draw. The photo came from him.

You don’t need to buy more land for this. “You take what you’ve got and manipulate the course around it,” Hennigar says. “Some courses in Holland play right through buildings.” A true Farmersgolf course has 10 holes.

Over the winter, many farm families brainstorm new ideas to make money off their land. Farmersgolf is one of many. If you've got good agritourism or other business-building ideas you'd like to share, please email me and I'll share them with other readers. Maybe you've done something on your own farm and you don't mind talking about it. Or maybe you've visited a farm that's doing something you think others should try.