How to Build Your Farm Activities Menu (That Guests Actually Pay For)
Most eco-farms offer experiences that feel like afterthoughts. Here is how to design an activities menu that becomes the real reason people choose your land.
When Lila and her co-founders started Ahmad Farms on a 22-hectare plot in Abuja, Nigeria, they thought they were building a garden. A nice place to come and have a picnic. That was the original idea. What they built instead — an infinity pool, a polo ranch, greenhouses, chalets, a petting zoo, a golf course — was never planned from day one. It grew activity by activity, experience by experience, demand by demand.
That is both the beauty and the danger of building a farm activities menu without a framework. You can end up with a remarkable destination. Or you can end up with a scattered list of things that confuse guests, stretch your team thin, and generate far less revenue than they should.
The difference is design. And that is what this article is about.
"It started as a garden. Then the ideas kept growing.
This is where we are today." — Lila, Ahmad Farms Abuja
Why most farm activity menus fail
The most common mistake I see with eco-farm owners is building activities based on what they love to do — not what their guests are willing to pay for, return for, and recommend to others.
A farm activity menu is not a list of things that happen on your land. It is a curated set of experiences, each designed with a specific guest in mind, a specific emotional outcome, and a clear price that reflects real value.
When this thinking is missing, you end up with:
Activities priced too low out of fear of "seeming commercial"
Offerings that overlap and compete with each other instead of stacking
No seasonal logic — everything offered all year, resulting in nothing being special
Zero upsell path — guests leave without spending more than their entry ticket
The 3 questions to ask before adding any activity
Before you put anything on your menu, every activity needs to pass three tests:
Question 1
Who is this for, exactly?
A family with young children? A couple on a wellness weekend? A school group? Each activity should have one primary guest profile.
Question 2
What will they feel?
Reconnection? Learning? Wonder? Pride? The emotional outcome is the product — not the activity itself.
Question 3
Does it belong here?
Is it rooted in your land, your culture, your produce, your story? An activity anyone could copy is not a competitive advantage.
The 5 categories of a complete farm menu
A well-designed farm activities menu covers five distinct experience types. Think of them as five distinct revenue streams, each serving a different guest moment and a different willingness to pay.
1 Passive discovery — the self-guided layer
Signposted trails, harvest baskets, QR-code nature stations, self-pick gardens. These are experiences guests do at their own pace, with no staff required. They earn you revenue while you sleep and they make your land feel generous and exploreable.
At Ahmad Farms, the simple act of walking through the greenhouse — picking vegetables, understanding the growing process — became one of the most talked-about moments for guests. No guide needed. Just good signage and a story.
Revenue typeEntry fee or product sale
Staff neededNone
Profit margin70–85%
2 Hands-on workshops — the skill layer
Cooking, bread-making, painting, basket weaving, natural dyeing, fermentation. The guest learns something with their hands. They leave with a result — a jar, a loaf, a painting — and a story to tell. This is your highest word-of-mouth generator.
The key: workshops must use your farm's actual produce, materials, and culture. A bread workshop using flour from your grain field is unforgettable. A generic bread workshop is not worth the price.
Duration2–4 hours
Capacity6–14 guests
Price range$45–$90 per person
3 Nature connection — the slowness layer
Forest bathing, sunset walks, animal encounters, birdwatching, stargazing. These activities have almost no material cost. They sell the land itself — the silence, the light, the air. And they carry extremely high perceived value because they are the opposite of what city life offers.
At Ahmad Farms, the infinity pool overlooking the green became the most photographed spot on the farm — despite being a relatively simple feature. People came for the feeling. Build activities around feelings your land already creates for free.
Material costNear zero
Perceived valueVery high
Profit margin80–95%
4 Wellness — the restoration layer
Yoga, tai chi, breathwork, sound healing, meditation. Your land as a place of restoration. Morning yoga by the garden. Sound healing under the trees. These sessions are bookable as add-ons to a farm stay or as standalone half-day retreats. The same land. A completely different revenue stream.
You do not need to be a yoga teacher. You need a partner who is, and a beautiful outdoor space that makes the session worth the premium price.
FormatSession or full-day retreat
Price range$25–$200 per person
Profit margin75–90%
5 Educational visits — the impact layer
School groups, agricultural extension workers, university students, community programs. These visits are structured, repeatable, forecastable — and they fill your calendar during the week when leisure guests are absent. One school group of 30 students at $15 per head is $450 for a half-day, with minimal cost.
The CSA model works similarly: families pay monthly to receive a box of vegetables. The farm becomes part of their weekly life. The relationship deepens. And the revenue becomes predictable before the season even begins.
Capacity15–35 students per group
Revenue type Per-student or group flat fee
Calendar slot Weekdays — fills the gap
The activity stacking principle
The goal is not to offer all five at once. The goal is to stack them intelligently so that one guest, during one visit, can spend across multiple categories without feeling sold to.
Example guest journey — one weekend visit at hippo farm
Saturday morning: self-guided nature trail ($12). Afternoon: farm-to-table cooking workshop ($65). Evening: sunset walk + dinner ($55). Sunday: morning yoga session ($30). Total spend per guest: $162 — from one visit.
None of these activities are expensive individually. But when they are designed to flow into each other — when the trail leads naturally to the workshop, and the workshop ends naturally at the dinner table — the guest does not feel upsold. They feel taken care of.
Your activity design checklist
Every activity has one clear guest profile and one emotional outcome
Every activity uses something from your land — your produce, your culture, your ecosystem
Your menu covers at least 3 of the 5 experience categories
You have at least one weekday activity (educational) and one weekend highlight
Every activity has a natural upsell to the next activity or a product to take home
Prices reflect the full value of the experience — not just the cost of materials
Start with one. Just one.
You do not need to build all five streams before you open. Ahmad Farms started with a garden. The CSA farm in the Philippines started with vegetables and a kitchen. What matters is choosing your first activity deliberately — designing it well, testing it with real guests, and then building from there.
The farms that last are not the ones that launched everything at once. They are the ones that mastered one experience, listened to their guests, and grew activity by activity — each one rooted in the same identity, the same values, the same land.
Ready to Take the Next Step?
If this guide has spoken to you — if you're standing on a piece of land wondering what it could become, or planning an eco-farm and feeling overwhelmed by where to start — I'd love to talk.
I offer personalised regenerative design consultations tailored to your land, your vision, and your practical reality. Whether you're at the very beginning or already a few years in and looking for a fresh perspective, this is where the real design work begins.
Book a consultation with Soumia →
You can also explore my ebooks and workshops in the Online Boutique — practical resources for landowners and eco-farm founders who want to go deeper on specific aspects of regenerative design.
