Your Agritourism Operation

Agritourism is a completely new business for most farmers and ranchers. Starting an agritourism operation means entering the hospitality industry while maintaining agricultural production. This requires new skills and new partners and involves new regulations and new risks. This section explores steps, challenges & models.

Is agritourism for you?

Agritourism is not the best strategy for every farm or ranch. Farmers and ranchers considering agritourism need to think about their goals and how agritourism activities might help them achieve these goals. They need to assess their own and their community's resources, review legal, human, financial and neighbor-related limitations, and evaluate the potential of various possible activities.

• Presentation: Evaluating your Resources
• Worksheet: Assessing your Resources Worksheet
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Agritourism Examples

• Sierra Valley Farms Agritourism, by farmer Gary Romano
• Wemple's Pumpkin Patch, by Dena and Fred Wemple
• The Live Earth Farm Discovery Program, by Jessica Ridgeway
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Strategy & planning

Planning your agritourism operation means creating a separate enterprise that supports and complements your agricultural production business. Start with the mission (why), decide on goals and objectives, both financial and social (what), and then develop strategy and tactics to achieve your goals and objectives (how) while staying true to your guiding mission.

• Developing Mission and Vision Statements for Your Business, by Andrea Nield, CSUMB SBDC
• Intro to Business Planning, from Kristin York, Sierra Business Council Small Business Development Center
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Permits, regulations & policy

Agritourism in California has great potential for farmers and ranchers. But numerous regulations  face landowners interested in establishing an agritourism enterprise, Regulations are part of doing business, and your compliance with them helps protect operators as well as consumers from potential liabilities.

• Agritourism enterprises on your farm or ranch: Where to start (2008) Peer-reviewed, 6-page article (PDF) with step-by-step introduction to dealing with regulations, for agritourism operators.
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Risk management, safety & insurance

• Introduction to Risk and Landowner Liability presentation from Ramiro Lobo, UCCE and Rusty Rumley, National Ag Law Center
• Integrating Safety into Aritourism - walkthroughs, checklists and resources to implement safety best practices
• Insurance Discussion Sheet - from Integrating Safety into Aritourism.
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Hospitality and visitor care

• Hospitality on your farm, by Scottie Jones, Leaping Lamb Farm
  
• Bishops' Pumpkin Farm Customer Service Program by Meghan Bishop-Sanderson
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Marketing

• Marketing strategies for agritourism operations(2011). Peer-reviewed, 21-page chapter (PDF) that explores marketing strategies, inlcuding understanding the market, developing messaging, launching a campaign and other topics tailored to agritourism operators.
• Creating a Marketing Strategy, from Danna Straud, Sierra Nevada Conservancy
• Effective websites and social media for agritourism, from Sarah Potter, Sarah Potter Designs
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Farm Trails and other collaboration

• Putting Your Group ON THE MAP: Creating A Regional Agritourism Marketing Map, by Vivien Straus, Sonoma Marin Cheese Trail
• Sierra Oro Farm Trail, presentation by Jamie and Nicole Johansson.
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