By Claudine Arndt
The Butcher’s Dinner and Barn Dance, held on Saturday, September 7, 2024, celebrated local foods for the community and featured a pop-up farmers’ market and regenerative farm tour followed by a farm to table dinner and a traditional barn dance with music from Heartbreak Affair.
At Medicine Creek Farm in Finlayson, agritourism - the marriage of agriculture and tourism - is built into the farm’s overall mission. Farmer Hannah Bernhardt raises pastured lamb and pork and grass fed beef, and she and her husband Jason offer two “farm stay” getaways for people looking to experience life on their working farm: a full-amenities timber frame barn and a restored 1965 vintage camper trailer situated in a picturesque pasture. Hannah says, “We feel that to improve our local food system, consumers and eaters have to be a part of it. When you bring them onto the farm and show them how things work, they have a better understanding of the realities of the farm and what it takes to raise healthy food.”
In 2023 Hannah partnered with butcher Brian Merkel of Y-ker Acres to host Butcher’s Dinner and Barn Dance for the first time. The event came back for a second year! The event gave guests an opportunity to experience one of Hannahs’ popular farm tours and witness regenerative grazing - and its benefits - in action. Completed with a pop-up farmers’ market, farm-to-table dinner crafted by Brian and the team at Baptism River Barbecue, and closed out with an old-fashioned barn dance, the Butcher’s Dinner and Barn Dance was a place for family and friends to come together.
Brian has worked in whole animal butchery all over the country, focusing on humanely raised, heritage breed animals from small farms. From 2017 until 2019, he helped open the Hewing Hotel in Minneapolis, where he developed their whole animal butchery, dry-aged beef and dry-cured charcuterie program with Y-ker Acres and other northern Minnesota farms. In the spring of 2019, Brian decided to get closer to the source and move with his family to Duluth, where he has partnered with Y-ker Acres to help expand their wholesale and direct-to-consumer offerings.
Commenting on the value of agritourism, Brian says, “Since I live in Duluth, I forget that people dream about getting out of the city to spend their free time connecting with farms and food. Farm dinners are great ways to get people out of the city and connecting with each other, too.”
Farmers, butchers, and chefs of Medicine Creek Farm, Yker Acres and Baptism River Barbecue gathered on September 7 for a full-fledged farm-to-table community event. This event was organized in collaboration with Renewing the Countryside, Sustainable Farming Association and Minnesota Farmers Union to promote and expand agritourism opportunities through local on-farm events.
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