BOOK REVIEW

The New Agritourism: Hosting Community and Tourists on Your Farm

Book by Barbara Berst Adams
Reviewed by Dan Sullivan

Every October my family makes the trek down the hill from our southeastern Pennsylvania home to Savidge Farms in rural Alburtis where a vast U-pick pumpkin patch is accompanied by a miniature golf course, a corn maze, a combine-turned-jungle-gym and a gift shop.

While we grow pumpkins as part of our cover-crop and no-till experiments at here in the Rodale Institute farm fields—and the farm-operations guys are generous in handing them out to employees—we are, nevertheless, dedicated to faithfully making the short trip to the Savidges each year for the haywagon ride, the ritual of picking out and hauling in our own hulking pumpkin from the field, and to support our farmer-neighbors.

So when Bear Creek Alpacas opened its barn doors to the public another half-mile down the road a few months ago, we immediately lined up a field trip for our home-school cooperative. Each student came back the proud owner of a “baby alpaca” purchased at the farm’s gift shop, and the kids went on for days about the awesome “spit fight” they witnessed between two furry, feisty critters. (From the parents’ slightly loftier perspective, each child’s visit to a working farm moulds a more conscious consumer and steward of the land.)

Right here on our nonprofit education and research farm, our young and hugely successful CSA farming couple has become a main attraction. What began as a bit of a gamble for John and Aimee Good—who left another thriving CSA they were managing in the region to begin anew with us—has turned up aces for everyone involved. More than 200 regional customers get to visit the Institute once a week to pick up their box of vegetables from the Quiet Creek Farm CSA, perhaps visit the U-pick berry, bean and flower gardens open to members, and walk our perimeter trail or browse our bookstore. The Goods and their customers have brought new energy and vitality to our farm.

Yes, The New Agritourism is alive and well in Berks County, Pennsylvania, and across the United States, as families and individuals wander collectively, eyes squinting, out of the shopping malls and mega-superstores and begin the quest for authenticity.

Fred Kirschenmann, a leader at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture and now also at Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, says these newly awakened eaters are searching for “food with a story.” Sure, Americans want something fun to do on Saturday, but they’re looking for a whole lot more. They have a desire to know where their food comes from, who produced it, and that it was grown or raised in a manner that will sustain their bodies and the environment for generations to come.

The New Agritourism offers the growing disenchanted part of the food-buying public a powerful antidote to the dubious science, animal cruelty, mass marketing and mass transit that’s become part and parcel of America’s food system (to use the word “food” loosely). It’s a movement that puts farmers back into the well-deserved seat of respectability within their communities and gives consumers opportunities to make more informed, healthy choices.

The New Agritourism cuts out the middlemen and puts control back into the hands of farmers and those they serve as it puts more dollars in the farmers’ pockets. It’s nothing short of a quiet revolution. And what’s a revolution without a manifesto?

The New Agritourism: Hosting Community and Tourists on Your Farm is a must-read for anyone considering making a go of farming in the 21st Century, or for anyone who is not quite making a go of it and who is willing to rethink their operation. Barbara Berst Adams offers a thoughtful and detailed roadmap that dispenses both inspiration and nuts-and-bolts advice, including real-life examples of people who have turned their business around financially, created on-farm income opportunities for all family members, and discovered that farming can be fun again.

Slow and steady wins the race, the author counsels, and if you’re not a people person you might want to reconsider opening your farm to the public. As a journalist within the organic and sustainable farming movement for many years, I’ve met many farmers who discovered that relationships were the best crop worth cultivating once they established a direct connection with their customers.

If you are ready to open the gates, it’s within these pages that you will learn to develop a business plan, research and weigh the focus and details of your operation, navigate the bureaucracy, market your business and get your legal ducks in a row. You’ll learn how to plan on-farm events—concerts and outdoor fine-dining are fair game and profitable—and to harness the efforts of your customers, the local media and the growing “good food” movement to promote your business.

My wife and I have long talked about experimenting with cob construction by building a playhouse for our children in the woods behind our home. So I was delighted to discover resources for cob builders within a chapter on B&Bs in a section suggesting alternative guest accommodations. Farmer-chef events, on-farm internships, turning value-added products into value-added enterprise squared by offering on-farm training—the best part about this read is that great ideas are backed up with excellent resources, inviting the reader to seek further where they are so inspired.

In our world of global warming spurred by thoughtless consumerism and big business as usual, it’s easy to feel like We the People have no control. One powerful choice we do exercise daily is how and where we spend our food (and fiber) dollars. More and more people are coming to understand this, and they are seeking out opportunities to support real change through this daily act of conscious (versus “conspicuous”) consumerism.

By embracing The New Agritourism from the farmer side, you can create that change as you find new relationships and enjoyable ways to improve your bottom line. By asking about these opportunities as an agritourist, you’re connecting your family to food and farming as you celebrate good living and good taste.

Dan Sullivan is senior editor with The Rodale Institute and is former senior editor at Organic Gardening magazine.