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California Agritourism News
UC ANR Agritourism News & Notes
March 2016
In This Issue

Happy Springtime!

We're excited to announce our next adventure, and hope you will join us in it. Please read below about our partnership with FarmsReach to offer educational webinars and host online conversations useful to the California agritourism community. FarmsReach is an online network that helps farmers buy and sell things and connect with each other for accelerated learning success and cameraderie.

Culinary Tourism is a fast-growing trend. Farm dinners open to the public are selling out for many farms. In this issue, some farm dinner operators share their stories.

Please check your listing on www.calagtour.org, upload a picture, and update it if needed. Visits to this site by people searching for farms and ranches to visit are increasing steadily.

Have a good month, and please stay in touch.
Sincerely,
 
Penny Leff, Agritourism Coordinator
UC Small Farm Program
530-752-7779
 

Introducing: Agritourism Conversations   

Are you one of the thousands of California farmers and ranchers who have an existing agritourism program? Are you a tourism professional seeing increased interest in agritourism in your community? Are you a county planner trying to balance the desire of entrepreneurial farmers to ease agritourism restrictions with their neighbors' worries and concerns?

Let's talk. Please join us for these lunchtime webinars and online conversations, starting soon. We'll be in touch soon with registration info and dates (We're trying for every two weeks). Also, please nominate successful farmers to participate as speakers in this series. (See below for more info.)

Agritourism Conversations Lunchtime Webinars
(all webinars will be 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.)

April 21, 2016 - The Strategy: Identifying, reaching & connecting with YOUR agritourism customers
Webinar #2 - The Invitation: Social Media & Website Success
Webinar #3 - The Rules: Navigating and Negotiating Permits and
Regulations
Webinar #4 - The Community: Powerful Promotions through Partners
Webinar #5 - The Delivery: Five-Star Customer Experience

The University of California Small Farm Program is teaming up with FarmsReach to provide a series of practical webinars and an online forum for conversations about California agritourism, thanks to funding from the USDA Farmers' Market Promotion Program. The UC Small Farm Program has been working for more than fifteen years with UC Cooperative Extension advisors and others to develop resources and connections for California agritourism operators. Our popular Agritourism Intensive workshop series' have been offered in eleven different counties.

Our website hosts useful fact sheets and research. Our online directory and calendar helps visitors find farms and ranches to visit. And, our monthly California Agritourism newsletter helps share news and resources for the agritourism community. FarmsReach also offers an Agritourism Toolkit  and a popular online forum  for information-sharing among the agricultural community. Together, we hope to nurture the statewide agritourism conversation.

Every two weeks, we'll start with a live webinar sharing lessons about an important theme for successful agritourism programs, which will be immediately archived for convenient access during the series. Between the webinars, we'll continue the conversation online in FarmsReach with the webinar presenters and other experts answering questions and moderating discussion so that anyone involved in California agritourism can easily share ideas and get help.

Wondering how to increase revenue from your farm tours? Questions about U-Pick customer management? Need insurance provider recommendations? Concerned about regulatory changes or comparing corn maze designers? Evaluating the effectiveness of Twitter and Instagram? Interested in sharing your strategies for season extension or parking lot design? You're not alone in your adventures and challenges. Please watch for webinar registration information and join the agritourism conversation on Farmsreach.

Farmer/Rancher nominations wanted
We have an excellent team of marketing and hospitality professionals presenting in these webinars, and would like your nominations and suggestions of farmers and ranchers who are doing a creative and successful job in their existing agritourism operation.

We have a small stipend available to pay all farmer speakers to contribute 10-15 minutes in any one of the topics. Thank you for your suggestions! Please click here to nominate a farmer speaker for this webinar series.

More news very soon! Please watch FarmsReach and the California Agritourism Newsletter for updates and webinar registration information. We're looking forward to talking with you.

Farm Dinners - Some stories from the field  

Some call them "Culinary Tourism." Others call them "Farm to Fork." Whatever they're called, dinners on a farm or ranch are increasingly popular with farm fans, and can be profitable for the farmers who host them. We talked with farmers from Full Belly Farm in Capay Valley, Bloomingcamp Ranch in the San Joaquin Valley, and Mother Lode Harvest in the Sierra Nevada foothills to learn a little about their on-farm dinners. Here are their stories and tips for other farmers considering farm dinners:
  • Full Belly Farm in the Capay Valley, western Yolo County, is now in the second year of offering monthly farm dinners to the public from March through October. Second generation farm partners, Jenna and Amon Muller, prepare the meals for their 30 guests each month... ...read more 
Is your agritourism operation or event on www.CalAgTour.org ?  
 
Why Not? It's all FREE

The online UC Agritourism Directory is visited by more than 3,000 people each month who are searching for California farms and ranch experiences. Listing your operation on the site might help them find YOU.
(Don't forget to upload a picture, too.) 

     

Check out the expanding agritourism promotion also on the Visit California website! 


If you are a working California farmer or rancher operating an agritourism business or organizing agritourism events, we invite you to complete the directory application or the event listing form online to be included in the directory. It's all free. If you're already a member, please check your listing and use the update form to send us changes.

(To let us know about your events, please add [email protected] to your email marketing list or use the event listing form. Please let us know what you've got planned so we can help you promote yourself) 

Some useful resources... 
  • Handouts, presentations and notes from the recent Agritourism Intensive classes held in Modesto, Redding and Quincy - including assessment for agritourism worksheets, business planning introduction, county environmental health & planning info, tourism partners, marketing strategy, liability, safety risk management and emergency preparedness materials
  • Marketing Regional Farms and Wineries: A Guide for California Agricultural Marketing Groups - published online in November 2015 by the UC Small Farm Program. This guide is based on interviews with and presentations by 24 leaders of farm and wine trails, agritourism associations and regional agricultural marketing groups, intended to help other similar groups.
  • Farm Based Education Network
    A free international member network established to strengthen and support the work of educators, farmers and community leaders providing access and experiences of all kinds on productive working farms
  • Farm Stay U.S. - A website operated by the U.S. Farm Stay Association (and Scottie Jones of Leaping Lamb Farm in Alsea, Oregon), for promoting farm and ranch stays in the United States. The site includes resource sections for farm stay operators and for farm stay visitors.
  • Hipcamp Landshare - rural accommodations marketing site  
    This new San Francisco-based site is dedicated to helping urban people explore rural areas by promoting camping and other accommodations offered on private land. If you are legally permitted to offer camping, cabins, or any kind of farm stay or guest ranch on your land, these folks may be good marketing partners.
  • Integrating Safety into Agritourism  
    This website contains a variety of walkthroughs, based on the type of   operation, to help owners identify health and safety hazards and provides resources that can be used to help fix these hazards. It's a great tool that can be used to help keep children (and everyone) safe when they visit farms and ranches.
  • North America Farm Direct Marketing Association (NAFDMA) - a membership based trade association dedicated to providing endless peer-to-peer learning opportunities, connections and resources, for farmers who are passionate about the business of agritourism and farm direct marketing.  
  • UC Small Farm Program Agritourism - research reports, factsheets, handouts and presentations from workshops, articles and current projects
  • World Wide Workers on Organic Farms (WWOOF US) - linking visitors with organic farmers for educational exchange
Thanks for reading to the bottom of the page. Please forward this newsletter to anyone you think may find it useful (Use the "forward this email" link just below),or share using the links at the top.

Penny Leff, Agritourism Coordinator  
UC ANR Small Farm Program 
530-752-7779, [email protected]