As I battle with municipal policy about what is agriculture and what is tourism, So many thoughts roll through my mind. But at the core people want to find meaning and participate in farming however they can. The more authentic and more integrated into the culture of a place a farm can create and tell their story the more successful it becomes. But at what point is the story more than the actual farm.
I feel like I see this a lot when I travel and want to meet farmers. Knowing the economics of the business, there seems to be a lot more story being sold but as you note, if that allows the farm to stay alive or at a scale that one person can manage, is it bad? Just searching AirBnB Experiences for Sao Miguel and there’s about a dozen “farm tours” which include milking a cow for about $100 per person. Maybe we’re going about agritourism all wrong in Ontario and need to stop selling $10 pumpkins and start selling $100 walks in the field to milk a cow. 😜 Seriously though, I think our relationship with food is different also and we’ve commoditized it so much, re-establishing the connection is important to some people but it’s not enough. People have to be entertained and many farmers are not in the business of entertaining.
As I battle with municipal policy about what is agriculture and what is tourism, So many thoughts roll through my mind. But at the core people want to find meaning and participate in farming however they can. The more authentic and more integrated into the culture of a place a farm can create and tell their story the more successful it becomes. But at what point is the story more than the actual farm.
I feel like I see this a lot when I travel and want to meet farmers. Knowing the economics of the business, there seems to be a lot more story being sold but as you note, if that allows the farm to stay alive or at a scale that one person can manage, is it bad? Just searching AirBnB Experiences for Sao Miguel and there’s about a dozen “farm tours” which include milking a cow for about $100 per person. Maybe we’re going about agritourism all wrong in Ontario and need to stop selling $10 pumpkins and start selling $100 walks in the field to milk a cow. 😜 Seriously though, I think our relationship with food is different also and we’ve commoditized it so much, re-establishing the connection is important to some people but it’s not enough. People have to be entertained and many farmers are not in the business of entertaining.