Alabama Agri-Tourism

Auburn, Dec. 3, 2003 --- Working with three other public and private partners, the Alabama Cooperative Extension System is spearheading a statewide effort to help small communities capitalize on two of their most abundant but frequently overlooked assets --- agriculture and tourism.

“Tourism and farming, which each generate about $6 billion in income each year in Alabama, are a natural match,” said Dr. Tom Chesnutt, an Alabama Cooperative Extension System Tourism specialist and assistant professor of nutrition and food science. “After all, there are thousands of Alabamians, many of whom are several generations removed from the farm, who have a natural curiosity about how commodities raised on the farm eventually find their way on supermarket shelves.”

The Agri-Tourism Partnership, composed of Extension, the Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries, the Alabama Farmers Federation and the Alabama Bureau of Tourism and Travel, plans to tap into this immense potential through a two-step process. Its first goal is to develop the statewide Alabama Agri-Tourism Trail --- an exhaustive inventory of agri-tourism sites that will be posted on the partnership’s new Web site www.alabamaagritourism.com.

Once this inventory is completed, Extension will work with its partners to carry out an extensive marketing effort to alert the general public about these opportunities.

Although initial efforts will focus on marketing existing agri-tourism operations, the partnership also has plans for more ambitious outreach efforts in the future.

“There are, after all, lots of things for an individual farmer or community to consider --- liability risks, providing adequate parking facilities, all kinds of things,” Chesnutt said.

“Down the road, we hope to be providing a series of workshops, publications and other outreach efforts so that those who are not yet involved in agri-tourism will have the tools to start their own operations. We also want to develop a certification process for these sites,” he said.

Farmers and communities throughout the state already are profiting from agri-tourism projects in variety of ways. In many instances, the concept behind these projects can be very simple.

“Many of these projects start out very small,” Chesnutt said. “They may begin simply as on-site sales of farm-grown commodities. Some have started u-pick operations where visitors can go and pick their own strawberries or blueberries. Others have established corn or hay mazes, which are great for school tours.

“The important point to remember here is that farmers aren’t doing away with their existing operations but complementing them with agri-tourism opportunities.”.

For many communities throughout the state, undertakings such as these may present the only real opportunity for economic development, Chesnutt said.

He cites Wright’s Dairy, located near Anniston, as one of Alabama’s best examples of agri-tourism. Several years ago, the dairy added a tourism component to their dairy operation so that visitors could see how milk is collected and eventually manufactured into ice cream and other dairy products. The dairy has since developed into a popular tourist attraction and school field trip destination.

[Source: Dr. Tom Chesnutt, Alabama Agri-Tourism Specialist, (334) 844-3517; Writer: Jim Langcuster, Extension Communications Specialist, News and Public Affairs, (334) 844-5686.]

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