This story was originally published October, 21, 2025 on Midstory, a nonprofit newsroom based in Toledo.
Throughout its 114-year history, Riehm Produce Farm in Tiffin, Ohio, has been no stranger to change. Vegetables, strawberries and a farm stand were all once new frontiers for the family-owned farm. But in the early 2000s, the Riehm family decided they wanted to offer something new: fun.
So they built a corn maze, joining hundreds of other farms across the country.
Corn mazes didn’t exist in the United States until 1993, but they’ve become hugely popular in the three decades since, especially among families.
“It’s a little bit rare to find an experience where the littlest person in the family and the oldest person in the family can all enjoy it together,” Kamille Combs, marketing director at The MAiZE, said.
A big part of corn mazes’ appeal is their designs. The first corn maze, in Annville, Pennsylvania, was dinosaur-themed. Maze designs have only gotten more complex, themed around everything from space to Taylor Swift.
The MAiZE, a corn maze consulting company, helps farmers create these intricate mazes. They’ve designed over 6,000 mazes for farmers around the world. Other companies offer custom design software and planters that distribute seeds in a specific pattern.
The Riehm family takes a more old-school approach. The maze is designed on graph paper, with each line corresponding to a row of corn. Once the corn is about knee-high, the design is carved out using a tractor and a tiller.
This year’s maze celebrates the 250th anniversary of the armed forces in America. Last year’s honored a deceased relative’s love of track and field.
The corn maze is Riehm’s largest attraction, but the farm also offers more than twenty other activities, including free-roaming goats, a giant slide, a pumpkin cannon and pig races.
Agritainment is just one part of the larger industry of agritourism.
“Agritourism is when farms open up their fields, their barns, even their farmhouses, even their homes, to visitors, and they share their agricultural heritage and traditions with visitors,” Lisa Chase, extension professor and natural resources specialist at the University of Vermont, said.
Among experts, there’s not a consensus on exactly what constitutes agritourism. Some definitions restrict the term to agriculture-related activities happening on a farm. Others may include off-farm activities like farmers markets or activities that happen on a farm but aren’t necessarily related to agriculture, like paintball or mini golf — both of which you can do at the Riehm farm.
What everyone can agree on is that agritourism has been happening for centuries in the United States.
“Gathering on farms — for barn raisings, for planting, for harvest celebrations — that is not new at all,” Chase said.
What’s changed is that the majority of Americans no longer have a direct connection to agriculture. That has allowed farmers to commercialize the experience of visiting a farm.
Ohio has the fourth-highest number of farms in the United States, but in 2023, 82% of the state’s population lived in metropolitan areas — more people than ever before.
Farms in the state have seen significant growth in agritourism revenue in recent years.
The United States Department of Agriculture survey, given every five years, has two questions that encompass the commonly agreed-upon agritourism activities.
The first question asks about the income farms made from “agri-tourism and recreational services,” which includes activities like hay rides, overnight farmstays and farm-hosted hunting and fishing trips.
The second question asks about “the value of food sold directly to consumers.” This captures income from activities like apple picking and on-farm markets, though it also includes off-farm sales, which are less frequently considered agritourism.
The data show that in Ohio, 894 farms earned money from USDA-defined agritourism activities, and 5,748 earned money from directly selling to consumers.
From 2002 to 2022, there was a fourteen-fold increase in income from USDA-defined agritourism activities in Ohio. Between 2017 and 2022, gross income doubled — the second fastest growth in the Midwest.
Increasing farm revenue is the most common goal of farmers who participate in agritourism. In 2022, farms participating in USDA-defined agritourism activities in Ohio earned $35,797 on average. That money can be a huge help, especially for small and medium-sized farms.
For the Riehms, a few bad years of wholesaling produce in the early 2000s necessitated new income sources. Today, the majority of their income comes from sales made directly to consumers through farmers markets, the farm stand and their community-supported agriculture program. The fall agritainment activities comprise 10% of their annual income.
Farmers, however, are motivated by more than just finances. In a 2023 study, 91% of farmers in agritourism said earning money was important or very important, but 88% also said building community was important or very important, while 86% felt that way about educating the public about agriculture.
“A lot of folks may have never even been on a farm before, and this is the only farm that they know. So we try and present it in a way that’s friendly to them, and provide some education,” Phil Riehm, a co-owner of Riehm Produce Farm, said.
Ohio’s geography has likely helped the agritourism industry grow in the state.
“A lot of agritourism actually happens in these places that we call peri-urban zones,” Jason Entsminger, assistant professor and state extension specialist for small business at the University of Maine, said. “Michigan and Ohio and Indiana, they have rural spaces that surround larger cities, and so that creates a lot of opportunity for people to get out of the city, build relationships with farms, and have experiences on farms, but still be able to go home.”
Entsminger co-authored a series of briefs analyzing the Census of Agriculture agritourism data.
Another contributing factor was the COVID-19 pandemic, which disrupted food supply chains and caused increased interest in outdoor activities. The Riehms saw an uptick in direct sales, which Phil Riehm attributed to consumers’ dual desires to avoid populated places and consume more thoughtfully.
“They kind of realized, ‘Hey, food is medicine. Food is important. It can, it can heal you, and it can do a lot of good for you if you’re eating the right food,’” Riehm said.
A visit to a farm can be a respite from everyday life.
“I’ve been to corn mazes where I go with friends, and it’s a time for fun and enjoyment, but we also get to reconnect in a space that is much different and slower paced than what our day-to-day is,” Entsminger said.
Agritourism also offers visitors a chance to create relationships with the people and places that grow their food.
“Authenticity, healthy experiences, local food, being in touch with nature, spending time with animals, spending time harvesting fruits and vegetables. These are all experiences that really touch at the core of humanity,” Chase said.
Creating these experiences is hard work, especially for an already busy farmer. The fall agritainment season is only around six weeks long, but the work extends far beyond the season.
“It’s a business. And like any business, it takes all year long to plan and prepare and then execute it,” Combs said.
Riehm echoed that sentiment.
“We kind of never stop thinking about it,” he said.
Outside of planning and running the agritainment activities, Riehm also manages vegetable production, raises pigs and drives weekly to farmers markets around Northwest Ohio.
Just like all farming, agritourism is fundamentally at the mercy of nature. Even the best-designed plans can be ruined by rain or an unexpected heatwave.
For Riehm, it’s all worth it.
“We love to see, you know, friends and families, and come out and have all the smiling faces, “ Riehm said. “It makes it a little bit easier after you’ve had a long, hard season.”