To: Skagit County Agritourism 11/15/2022
My name is Leslie Price. I own Jones Creek Farms located just outside Lyman. According to the general parameters of this new legislation I would be classified as agritourism since I direct market from the farm via a farm store and U pick.
I am here today because I have a real problem with the basic premise of this process. Most importantly I don’t believe the word agritourism should be used to broadly cover all the farm direct marketing venues that the county is trying to regulate. Agritourism can be used to cover farm tours, weddings, farm stays, seasonal events, and so forth but to include all the hundreds of farm stands and U picks, already in this county, as agritourism when in reality only a small fraction of them would pass the test of a real definition of agritourism is unfair and ridiculous.
I know I’m repeating myself here as I’ve made these statements during other video meetings and online surveys. The importance of this just cant be stressed enough though.
Lets start with the counties definition of agritourism. Its deeply flawed. Here it is:
“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)”
Technically, by this definition, my farm enterprise woudn’t even qualify as agritourism since our farm store and u pick make up most of our income.
The counties process of attempting to regulate agritourism in the county was like a train that had already left the station and then they started inviting public comment. Had you invited comment during the conceptual phase of the process you could have come up with a decent definition of agritourism. There are at least 30 states with agritourism definitions on the books. You could have learned from states that have been doing this for hundreds of years. UC Davis! Lets be real. The winegrape industry is just a tiny fraction of what we are dealing with here and thats the only practical experience California has.
Personally I like the USDA 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."
The most import reason why I like this definition is that it is also what most of the general public's idea of agritourism is. Had the county taken the time to include questions on what agritourism is in their surveys they would have found this out.
Ive been in this business a long time. A large portion of my clientele come from other states, where agritourism is popular, and they tell me time and again how nice it is to finally find a u pick like they used to have when they were growing up but how much nicer ours is because its not agritourism.
It is this public's perception of what agritourism is that is at the heart of the problem.
The county is expecting to label all farms with a direct marketing component as agritourism. This label will indeed identify to our customers and potential customers that we are agritourism farms, whether we are or not. This actually sets the county up for the potential for liability/slander claims. I myself have worked hard for the last 11 years to remove my farm from the stigma of the agritourism cloud. I still have to deal with it as a lot of people expect u pics to have some sort of agritourism components like entry fees, kids entertainment, education, etc.
The division in u picks is even worse, in this county, when it comes to berries. There are many u pick berry patches that their sole reason for existence is u pick. When the berries are ripe its get the customers in and out as fast as possible and get all the berries picked. These are not agritourism fields, the farmers have been doing it this way for a long, long time and it is simply a very economically sustainable way of direct farm marketing.
Yes there are u pick berry farms that would qualify as agritourism in Skagit County but not all of them.
Yes there are u pick orchards that would qualify as agritourism in Skagit County but not all of them.
Then there is the farm stands. This is just plain way too much to expect all the farm stands in the county to now be labeled as agritourism. Yes there are some that would qualify but far and away the majority of farm stands in the county have nothing to do with agritourism!
If you would actually take a look at the other states regulation of agritourism, items that qualify as agritourism, farm stands are not in any of them.
The county jumped into this without any good planning, Its obvious that the people setting up the surveys don’t have a clue! In the last survey they lumped u picks, farm stands and farm tours in the same category??? Its obvious these people have never been involved with any of these. Now they are stuck on this 3 options plan but you cant jump into these options until you define what agritourism really is and who it covers.
Problem is the whole plan is so flawed from the beginning that they need to go back to the beginning…..
I don’t have a problem with regulating land use especially when it comes to farming. What the county, however is trying to do here is take away an age old, tried and true tradition of farm direct marketing and re – label it as a modern, value added marketing method know as agritourism. The county has not given any thought as to the negative effects of the word agritourism. Segregating us all this way will have very negative effects, we all need to be very, very wary.
This will have a negative effect on my business and is not for me. I seriously doubt if many of the u picks and farm stands in the county would go for it if actually pressed.
Here’s what needs to be done:
- Come up with a realistic agritourism definition.
- Re structure the farm stand and u pick categories. With a proper agritourism definition all farm stands and u picks can be taken on a one by one basis and either classified as agritourism or not.
Leslie J Price, Jones Creek Farms
32260 Burrese Rd
Sedro Woolley, WA 98284
jonescreekfarms@yahoo.com
360 707 8234
This letter was originally mailed to the county commissioners during a coment period
on 11/22 then again another coment period on 7/23.
This letter was originally mailed to the county commissioners during a coment period
on 11/22 then again another coment period on 7/23.