Maeil's Sangha Farm welcomes visitors with activities

Workers at Sangha Farm in Gochang County, run by Maeil Dairies, pose in this photo taken on Aug. 3. Courtesy of Maeil Dairies

By Kim Jae-heun

Maeil Dairies, the country's largest dairy producer by revenue, is offering activities for visitors, including tours, demonstrations of agricultural and food production techniques and tastings.

Since April 2016, it has been running Sangha Farm, an organic farm in Gochang, North Jeolla Province, which welcomes visitors. The farm was founded to foster mutual growth with local governments and farmers. It was invested in by the dairy firm along with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and Gochang County.

Sangha Farm shows a new business model of combining a high value-added service together with primary, secondary and tertiary industries. It adopts a new concept of “make-play-eat” at its rural facility, where visitors learn from experts how to make agricultural products through hands-on experiences, and then try the foods for themselves.

Children can make cookies, sausages and bread at the farm, and see how cheeses are made via a fermentation process.

Local farmers also provide supplementary food ingredients for people to use in one-day cooking classes. They can choose to make sausages, glutinous rice cakes or organic ice cream.

The farmers there also raise livestock, including pigs, sheep, goats and cattle ― including dairy cows ― which people can see up close and handfeed.

There is also a ham workshop. Sangha Farm only uses clean pork produced in Gochang and certified by the Korea Agency of HACCP Accreditation and Service to make its high-quality ham and sausages, without added sodium nitrite or pigmentation agents.