Marie-Louise’s corn maze attracts thousands of visitors to the farm

It started as a fun idea: a plan to use GPS-guided sowing to create a corn maze big enough to get lost in. Three years later, this year’s maze in Vara has attracted well over 10,000 visitors.

Marie-Louise Stensson had no plans to become a farmer’s wife. But when a friend introduced her to her neighbor, she had to rethink.

“You can’t be worse than being able to change your mind! I didn’t have to think long once we met,” Marie-Louise laughs.

Today, it is as “Bondfrun” that she has made a name for herself. On the farm in the Vara plains, where she and her husband raise pigs, there is a small self-service farm shop, and she has previously been active in a local REKO ring. But this is not what has gained her the most attention. Instead, it’s her gigantic corn maze.

“It started with a friend of mine who had lived in the U.S. talking about mazes that are sown, and I thought it sounded fun! I designed a maze and got help to load it into our tractors’ GPS system for sowing. Then the machines did the work. It was a bit tricky before I found the right people to work with, but with the right team in place, it went really well!”

Three years ago, the first maze was sown on the farm outside Vara. At that time, Marie-Louise had no idea what she was getting herself into.

“I wanted to come up with something fun that would attract some people to the farm and help them discover us as a local food producer. But it turned out that lots of people wanted to come and walk through the maze. I wasn’t prepared for that at all!”

But Marie-Louise is not someone who backs down from a challenge. Every year, both the work involved and the maze itself have grown bigger.

“When we started with the maze, I never thought we would need any booking system, and definitely not that we would have to turn people away who wanted to come here—but unfortunately, that’s the case. The spots for the ghost walks that end the season sold out very quickly, and now we can’t expand any further, so those are the ones who end up disappointed. I find it hard to have to put a limit on it, but we can’t stay open longer than we already do.”

The maze – winter feed for the neighbor’s cows

But why does the maze have to close already at the beginning of October? Well, the neighbor who will use the corn as feed for his cows comes to harvest it. The day after the last visitors have walked through the maze, it is simply cut down.

“It’s important to me that it’s not just a fun thing, but that the maze serves a purpose after it has been a visitor attraction. We talk to all visitors about not littering in it, for example, because it will become feed for cows. We don’t have any problems with littering, and I think that’s because people know the corn will actually be used. And when we decorate it with ghosts, we keep lists of everything we’ve brought into the maze, so we can make sure all the items are taken back out again.”

For Marie-Louise, the maze is a fun feature of life on the farm. And she hopes that in the long run it will do more than just entertain. The maze - planted and grown, then harvested and turned into feed - is an example of the work that takes place on farms across the Skaraborg region.

Local, high-quality produce

Highlighting the importance of having a range of local produce and encouraging more people to become conscious consumers who demand locally grown quality is something close to Marie-Louise’s heart.

“We get quite a few visitors to our small farm shop, where we mainly sell the meat we produce here, but I would like to see more people choosing to buy directly from the farmer. Right now I’ve had to step back from participating in the local REKO ring, but I’m probably its biggest customer and I think the concept is fantastic. It’s important to support your farmers if you want to keep them!”

Marie-Louise is full of ideas and thoughts about how the farm and life in the countryside can develop in the future. All her ideas make you curious about the future of the maze, will there be a new one next year?

“Yes, there will be a maze next year as well. Once you’ve found something this fun, you just keep going as long as it’s enjoyable. And enjoyable - well, it definitely is!”

This text has been translated with the help of AI.