Standing in his machine shop, surrounded by tractors and implements, Roy Arends explained to a group of bloggers how his family uses conservation tillage to help prevent soil loss on their farm near Alexander.

“Now, what are cover crops?” asked Donna Hup, a blogger from Northwood who writes about her travel adventures at www.donnahup.com. “It’s OK to explain it like I’m in elementary school, because this is all new to me.”

Earlier this month, the Franklin County Farm Bureau hosted about a half-dozen bloggers on a tourism and agriculture tour near Hampton.

The annual tour, launched in 2010, aims to connect influential Midwest bloggers with rural...