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On-Farm Sales & Agritourism
On-Farm Sales | Agritourism | Community-Based
Farm Tourism
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The Walters’ 100 varieties
of pumpkins and squash attract 15,000 visitors every fall. The
new enterprise has brought their daughter’s family back
to the Burns, Kan., farm. – Photo by William Rebstock |
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Potential agritourism enterprises abound. Figure out what’s
unique about your farm and your skills, and use those things to
create an enjoyable, educational experience that will appeal to
your customers. The key to agritourism is authenticity and creativity.
Becky Walters planted her first acre of pumpkins on her central
Kansas farm in 1988 after her boss at a local greenhouse gave her
seed for a new miniature pumpkin that was popular at nurseries and
farm markets.
“My husband caught a big razzing at the co-op,” she
recalls, “but I made $583 selling them, twice what we would
have made on the 5 acres of milo we usually had in that field.”
Like most of their neighbors, Becky and her husband, Carroll, had
been growing milo and soybeans and grazing cattle for the commodity
market. With grain and beef prices hovering at or below the cost
of production, the couple was eager to find a way to breathe new
profits into the 1,700-acre farm where Carroll had grown up.
Bit by bit, the Walters expanded that original acre of pumpkins
to 16 acres. They built a processing kitchen so they could create
value-added products. Then they added a gift shop, a swinging bridge
over their creek to appeal to kids, a corn maze and educational
tours to draw customers to their farm, ideally located for a tourism
venture just minutes off the Kansas Turnpike.
Today, the Walters grow more than 100 varieties of pumpkins, gourds
and winter squash -- from minis to giants -- along with tomatoes,
peppers and onions. Planting many squash varieties also helps the
Walters spread risk, since different types thrive in different weather
conditions. Drawn by the variety and convenient location, as many
as 15,000 visitors flock to Walters’ Pumpkin Patch in the
six weeks leading up to Halloween.
“People come just to see all the different kinds that we
have,” says Becky Walters, who received a SARE farmer/rancher
grant to experiment with ways to add value to pumpkins by making
salsa. The product, after experimentation with the recipe and the
right jar for packing, dovetails with their tourism efforts, complements
their other vegetables and provides new jobs in their community.
The enterprise has been so successful that her daughter and son-in-law
have moved back to the farm to help out. With their two young grandsons
beginning to get involved in the business, Becky says, “it
feels like a real family farm again.”
To expand their educational efforts for school groups, the Walters
will teach visitors about native frogs and fish in their farm pond
and incorporate information about the Walnut River, which surrounds
them on three sides.
“I think having an idea of doing something and jumping off
the cliff to do it is the hardest part,” Walters says. “Sometimes
it takes what I call ‘thinking outside the barn.’ When
you put a pencil to it, it just doesn’t make sense for us
to grow the conventional crops any more.”
The Walters and others who offer educational programs for school
groups recognize that teaching children usually requires special
skills and always a good set of ideas. To engage children, consider
getting them involved in projects -- whether it’s digging
potatoes, planting corn, or decorating pumpkins. Keeping groups
small helps. Of course, ensuring safety is paramount, especially
on farms with heavy equipment and other hazards. If you don’t
have the resources to develop educational programs on your own,
consider working with local schoolteachers, FFA groups, or others
in the community.
Marlene Groves of Buffalo Groves, Inc., in Kiowa, Colo., developed
youth education programs – including an “American Buffalo”
Girl Scout patch program and an educational youth buffalo project
for 4-H – to teach about buffalo history. The ranch’s
“Bison Reader,” a youth activity sheet, is a favorite
at many schools and nature centers. Efforts like these, Groves says,
foster a better understanding of ecology, agriculture and nutrition.
Mainly, she wants kids to know where their food comes from.
The Groves teach people, young and old, about their ranch and their
niche product during ranch tours. They charge $25 per person, refundable
in the form of store credit, and also offer customized tours for
private events.
“It takes work to run tours” on a 2,000-acre ranch,
Groves acknowledges, “but we want to showcase what we’re
doing.” They lead visitors on walks, talk about grazing management
and point out native grasses and wildflowers. “Of course,
the highlight is going out to see the buffalo herd,” she says.
Offering tours is a way of taking advantage of consumers’
and the media’s interest in farm life, Groves says. As part
of that, “tell a good story – tell your own story,”
she advises. In addition to selling meat on the ranch, they also
market and deliver directly to customers in Denver and Colorado
Springs and from their Website.
Other ranchers have expanded into diverse on-site activities, offering
hunting, fishing, bird-watching, horseback riding or hiking. In
Colorado, co-owners of the 87,000-acre Chico Basin Ranch began offering
working ranch vacation packages in 2000. While it’s taking
time to make that side of the business fully profitable, they feel
they’re moving in the right direction, says ranch manager
Duke Phillips.
While some people visit just for birding, which brings lower returns,
“we have packages where people stay for a week and we get
paid well for that,” says Phillips.
“We have to balance what we do with our values, the reason
we’re here as ranchers.”
Chico Basin was among a group of ranches in Colorado, Wyoming and
other western states that benefited from a SARE grant exploring
various types of community-based direct marketing models for ranch
owners seeking to diversify. The key is to put a value on the natural
resource amenities provided by ranchlands and to find ways for urban-
and suburban-based consumers to enjoy those amenities.
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