Centre County farm embraces agritourism with goat yoga, farm stays & more. Here’s what’s next
Agritourism is a growing industry that’s important to farmers, and Tara and Michael Immel have been learning about it first-hand by incorporating goat yoga and farm stays at their property.
The Immels purchased Nittany Meadow Farm, located off of U.S. Route 322 in Boalsburg, in April. They enjoy restoring old homes — one of their projects was the historic Valentine House in Bellefonte — and plan to restore the barn and keep it as an operational farm.
Though previously it was a dairy farm and then a horse farm, the Immels will focus on goats at Nittany Meadow Farm. They have a herd of dairy goats, including mini-Nubians and Nigerian Dwarfs, and Boer meat goats. They’ll have a goat dairy operation in the summer in addition to pasture-raised beef and pork. At the farm, they raise Angus and Hereford beef, and Idaho Pasture Pigs.
But operating a farm can be expensive between equipment, plantings, animals, feed, etc., and oftentimes farmers need another way to supplement their income. Agritourism combines agriculture with tourism to bring visitors to a farm for entertainment and education.
“Agritourism and agritainment is becoming very necessary for farms. It’s really difficult to survive farming anymore. ... What’s happened is the farming industry has grown to where every farmer is kind of looking at different ways to supplement their income. It’s not their main business, but it’s a way to help them get through,” Michael Immel said.
The Immels have several agritourism aspects at Nittany Meadow Farm, including goat yoga that has boomed in popularity and farm stays (“goatcation”). They’ve partnered with Wellness in Motion Studio; a yoga instructor comes to the farm and leads goat yoga sessions. Each lasts an hour, with 30 minutes of that dedicated to goat snuggles, pictures and playing with the goats.
And the goats are just as happy to see you as you are to see them.
“We’ve socialized them, they’re like dogs. They want to be with you. If we let them out, they would follow us everywhere,” Michael Immel said. There have even been times when the goats followed goat yoga participants to their cars after a session, Tara Immel said.
Goat yoga is held outside for now, but will move into the barn for the winter, where industrial heaters will help take the chill off.
What was previously a milk house and a wagon shed were renovated into a bed and breakfast before they purchased the property. The one bedroom, one bath milk house and the three bedroom, three bath wagon shed are listed on Airbnb and have been very popular.
“When they come here, it’s a farm stay for them. They get to interact with the goats, we give them a tour of the farm. If they’re here we offer them a session of goat yoga,” Michael Immel said. They also offer farm tours and open houses for the community.
In addition to their own plantings, which includes wildflowers, Nittany Meadow Farm also planted an acre of food for Think We, Not Me, which works to provide fresh, locally grown vegetables and fruit as part of the effort to eliminate food insecurity within Centre County, its website states. The Immels grew corn, acorn and butternut squash, lettuce, watermelon, broccoli, cauliflower and pumpkins, which were then donated.
What’s next for the farm?
Michael Immel is working on a design for an aquaponics greenhouse that they’re planning to build and incorporate with the farm. They plan to raise tilapia 1,000-gallon tanks and use the wastewater to provide nutrients to trays of lettuce and vegetables.
“They clean the water, they remove all the nutrients, and then you recirculate the water right back to the fish tank. So it’s a very economical process. It’s very sustainable,” he said.
Things will also grow a lot faster, Tara Immel said. A head of lettuce would take about 4-5 weeks, whereas it would take double that if planted in the ground, she said.
As one plant comes off, others are staged in there so they can have a continuous flow of crops. Since it’s inside a greenhouse, it can be done year-round without worry of the weather and other elements, Tara Immel said.
They plan to sell the greens and fish wholesale.
Looking ahead, the Immels have plans to continue evolving their agritourism aspect: goat yoga for kids when they have younger (and, therefore, smaller goats), goat experiences where people can hang out with the goats in the goat pen, and sessions to bottle feed baby goats.
For more information, visit www.nittanymeadowfarm.com. Registration is required for goat yoga and there is currently a wait list.
This story was originally published October 25, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
