Agritourism and how it affects Jones Creek Farms Pub. 1/1/2023
Over the last couple of years Skagit County has engaged in a campaign to place all farms who direct market their farm products under county regulation calling it agritourism. This is a very broad sweeping statement but is only exceeded by the counties attempts to label and segregate, as such, everyone who grows farm products and sells them direct from the farm to the customer.
This will, in effect, be trying to change farming as it has been carried out sinse its very begining. Not for any good mind you. Naming a pig a bird doesnt change the pig.
These regulations would encompass many areas that do need attention and such as weddings, farm stays, tasting rooms, tours and events, etc. Problem is the county has gone too far and encompassed all u-pick and even farm stands in their agritourism coverage. Considering the hundreds of farm stands in this county that dont even come close to meeting any definition of agritourism and most likekly most of the u-picks falling in that same catagory the county is way out of line.
The county put on a show by hiring an outside firm to conduct on line surveys and public coment many times then compiling this data and releasing it to the public.
The problem is the county had already made up its mind long before the surveys. A real survey would have asked what the publics perception of agritourism is. Does the public consider a lean-to honor stand on the front of a farmers barn to be agritourism? A box of flowers and a can for money along the road? A strawberry u-pick consisting of only an acre of berries and a parking lot. How is this agritourism?
Had the county asked people what their idea of agritourism is they undoubtedly would have come up with a wide variety of answers but at least the answers would have gotten them closer to a solution than what they came up with on their own....
Skagit County's original definition:
""Agritourism is generally considered "a commercial enterprise at a working farm, ranch, or agricultural plant conducted for the enjoyment of visitors that generates supplemental income for the owner." (UC Davis)""
This is the best the county could do. UC Davis, California, go figure. This definition of agritourism is obviously slanted towards large or wholesale farms that are looking for something to do as a sideline. It is far too narrow in scope to be a good definition. Had the county looked to the east, to states where agritourism has been a big thing for centuries, they could have found plenty of definitions to pick and choose from. Ive looked at a lot of them and there are a few that would be a place to start. Personaly, though I mostly like the USDA agritourism definition........
“Agritourism is a form of commercial enterprise that links agricultural production and/or processing with tourism in order to attract visitors onto a farm, ranch, or other agricultural business for the purposes of entertaining and/or educating the visitors and generating income for the farm, ranch, or business owner."
This definition is very much in line with most states in this country and even most other countries interpretation of agritourism which can be far more involved or developed than ours. I find this definition to also be more in line with what most people i have interacted with agree to, both on the farm and in the greater Seattle area farmers markets.
Here is a really good way to look at agritourism:
With farming you have 2 choices to sell your products:
Wholesale or sell direct to consumer.
Direct to consumer can be:
Farmers markets
CSA
Online sales
On farm or farm direct sales
Within the catagory of farm direct sales there can be several catagories:
1 Farm stores
2 U picks
3 Farm tours
4 Farm entertainment
5 Farm venues such as weddings
6 Farm stays
7 Tasting rooms
there are more...
So where does agritourism fit in?
Herein lies the problem, agritourism is not any of these things! Agritourism is a value added component that farmers or even non farmers can use to enhance their direct marketing.
With that in mind it does become more complicated to establish what farm is actually agritourism and which one is not. The results however are accurate and fair to everyone.
In the above 7 catagories it is pretty clear that 3 - 7 are well within the agritourism definition. 1 and 2 may be but will have to be evaluated on a case by case basis.
Once the county finally figures this out, then and only then can they proceed with further plans to regulate agritourism.
The County needs to focus on this one defining rule....
There needs to be value added components in each "agritourism" farm for it to qualify as an agritourism facility.
The county is setting up these regulations based on this premis:
"Skagit County is reviewing what
agritourism means to the County's
agricultural community, rural
residents, and other stakeholder
and how future agritourism
policies will fit the Comprehensive
Plan vision and the Growth
Management Act resource land
protections."
agritourism means to the County's
agricultural community, rural
residents, and other stakeholder
and how future agritourism
policies will fit the Comprehensive
Plan vision and the Growth
Management Act resource land
protections."
I am highly suspect that there arent other motives behind this. This is obviously a control issue. If it was just a GMA concern further regulation of farm stands and u-picks would not even be considered since they are already regulated.
Farm direct marketing has been around since time began in this country. It was the primary way of selling your farm goods. There was and is no other fancy term for it, it simply is farm direct marketing.
Now that the majority of Americans live in cities and cant travel to a farm to purchace their food it is a lot more uncommon to find farms still doing this. The heartland of our country is too depressing to even talk about thanks to Monsanto and GMO. Its the "get big or get out" philosophy
Now that the majority of Americans live in cities and cant travel to a farm to purchace their food it is a lot more uncommon to find farms still doing this. The heartland of our country is too depressing to even talk about thanks to Monsanto and GMO. Its the "get big or get out" philosophy
But, a pig is still just a pig....
So lets get down to Jones Creek Farms part in all of this.
I first became concerned with agritourism when the state came out with its COVID guidlines in Aug 2020. These were the mandatory guidlines for farms such as ours. The state just lumped all u-picks in with all agritourism facilities. I pretty much expected this type of ignorance and one shoe fits all type of responce out of Olympia but I sent off a couple of letters of objection anyway. As it so happened the states guidlines for COVID did not change our opperating procedures as we had allready formulated and implemented our own plan which had been in place since mid July when we opened that year. Im sure the state gave no thought as to the negative impacts of labeling everyone with u-picks as agritourism but it is this type of thinking among those with the power that ultimatly has harmful effects on the small farm community.
I did update our website to show that we were indeed not an agritourism farm which is realisticaly all I could do to correct the affects of arrogance and ignorance from the powers to be that make it ever harder to survive as a small family farm.
And then the next year Skagit county comes out with their great plan for agritourism!
Here is the problem with being assccoiated with agritourism. If my customers think My farm is agritourism then they will expect certain things. They wont expect certain things from my farm stand because farm stands are obviously not agritourism and the county is way off base to think that they will be the first ones ever to lable them as such. The problem comes with the u-pick. There are u-picks that are agritourism and those, like mine, that are not.
Having the label of agirtourism implies all kinds of things to the average customer. First and most likely is overpriced apples and some sort of entertainment. Some sort of tourism related activity. After all it is part of the word..... This is pretty much a no brainer..... after all its part of the word.... The U picks in the state and the county that are agritourism facilities do provide these tourist type activities. They do it as a value added marketing resourse.
In addition if a family leaves their home for an agritourism u-pick they may bring a meal with them expecting to find a place to eat. They will at least expect to find garbage facilities to dump their garbage before they leave even if they had to eat in their car. People coming to agritourism u-pick may expect to find certain fees like a fee for parking, a fee for a picking container, an entry fee, a minimum fee, cart fees, fees for rides in and out of orchard.
In addition if a family leaves their home for an agritourism u-pick they may bring a meal with them expecting to find a place to eat. They will at least expect to find garbage facilities to dump their garbage before they leave even if they had to eat in their car. People coming to agritourism u-pick may expect to find certain fees like a fee for parking, a fee for a picking container, an entry fee, a minimum fee, cart fees, fees for rides in and out of orchard.
Customers may also expect us to be taking care of their children while they are here or that there is entertainment for kids here or activities.
Its not that we havent tried agritourism, here at Jones Creek Farms, we have. Before we ever specialized in U pick we focused mainly on farmers markets for our income. We have done as many as 7 markets a week along with special events in the Puget Sound area. During those farmers market years there was a lot of interest from our customers to be able to visit our farm. We eventually decided to have anual harvest festivals open to everyone. These turned into 3 day events on a weekend in each October. We pretty much went all out, inviting other vendors to come and set up at the barn, all kinds of food of course, live music when we could get it.
We advertized in a couple of Seattle family publications and the turnout was huge. Usually far more than our meager parking could handle.
This was definitely agritourism and I was happy to be eventually moving away from it. It was more chaos than satisfaction. I never really wanted the carnival theme for my farm regardless of how much money it would bring in.
As I have stated elsewhere on this site, our U pick is an extension of our direct marketing philosophy. We firmly believe in vertical intigration and cutting out as many middle men as possible. In the fruit business U pick is the perfect, most simple example of this. We are able to save costs in several areas and in doing so pass some of these savings along to the customers with lower prices.
By contrast, if we were agritourism, we would have to make up for those extra costs associated with value added and pass them on to the customer.