The Knight Round Barn in Loleta, built in 1896, is unlike any other structure in Humboldt County. The barn was constructed of virgin old-growth redwood, much of which remains pristine and beautiful, but it is now threatened by lack of maintenance and repairs.

A community partnership allows college students to help restore and preserve the round barn and many of the hundreds of other farming attractions that attract visitors to Humboldt County. UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor Deborah Giraud is collaborating with Bill Hole, College of the Redwoods Historical Preservation Restoration Technology Director and with the Humboldt County Convention and Visitors Bureau in this effort. 

The community college students take theory and hands-on courses to learn research, historical documentation, structural analysis, repair and rehabilitation. Then they work with owners on goals, cost projections and new activities. The visitors bureau is promoting the barns as heritage destinations, and UC Cooperative Extension is organizing the collaboration with farmers and ranchers who can not afford to maintain their historic barns. For more information, contact Deborah Giraud, 707-445-7351.

 

Printing farm trail maps every year is expensive. This year Ag Adventures of the Central Coast has developed a new approach for farmers to work together to cross-promote each other. The association will still create a farm trail map, but it will only be available online so it can be updated quickly as new members join.

In addition to the online map, each participating farm will work directly with a professional graphic designer to create their own farm card. Each card will have a full-color promotion of the farm on one side and standard information about Ag Adventures on the back.

Each farm will receive a free-standing revolving card rack. Participants agree to display the racks, stocked with their neighbors' cards, in a prominent location at their farm stand or business. In addition, the cards can easily be used to stock racks in visitors bureaus, local hotels and resorts, expanding the visibility of Ag Adventures' members.

"Increasingly travelers are using handheld, internet accessible, GPS enabled devices, such as iPhones, BlackBerries, and Garmin GPS units, to tap into mashups (composite web applications) of 'points of interest' databases and digital maps."
--Adeel Ahmed

In 2008, the mobile internet had 40.4 million users, a 100 percent increase from 2006. Sixty percent of these users were 25 to 54 years old. At the recent National Extension Tourism Conference, University of Minnesota Community Economics Educator Adeel Ahmed explained how easy it is to list your own business, enhance your listing, and make sure that customers can find you, see pictures, read reviews, take a video tour, and check your website from their cars. And it's all free!

 

Start with Google maps, Mapquest and Bing.com/maps. Check your listing by searching as your visitors might. For example, try "farm stands, town name". If you don't see your business, you can list it on Google maps at Google's Local Business Center.  If your business is listed, click on it and look for a link to update the listing, which will lead you through a registration process. You can then enter a description, upload a picture, link to a video, list your website, and update your exact location. In your description, be sure to use keywords that Internet searchers are likely to use, such as "farm stand" or "vineyard wedding".  Unless they are return visitors, people won't know to search for you with your farm name. Photos should be small, less than 500 kb, so they download quickly. 

"Points of interest" that pop up on your GPS are based on databases operated by Teleatlas.com and Navteq.com. You can make sure your business is correctly listed on these sites. You also might want to list your restaurant or food business on "Urbanspoon", which is a free iPhone application. Other exciting new tools let you take visitors on virtual trail walks or see a panaramic view of your farm.  Learn more about Ahmed's workshops.

 

Many California counties have recently included agritourism in their planning processes or are beginning to do so now. Solano County, with participation by Suisun Valley Harvest Trails Association and other stakeholders, has created two new zoning classifications for agricultural tourism. To encourage agritourism in the region, Solano has also expanded the types of business enterprises allowed with no or simplified permitting in general agricultural zoning areas of Suisun Valley.

Mariposa County worked with an agriculture and nature tourism advisory committee to define agritourism and the levels of agritourism activities allowed by right or permitted with either a conditional or administrative use permit, depending on the type of activities, the size of the land parcel and the number of people involved.

 

The Small Farm Program is gathering zoning and regulation documents related to agritourism from as many counties as possible, along with clear information about state ordinances regulating agritourism activities. Your help would be greatly appreciated. Please send us links and documents and contact people from your county. We will be posting these on the UC Small Farm Program agritourism section of our website, as part of our ongoing updating process. Check the site soon for other useful resources, links and connections.