Fertile Fields for Tourism

At the reins of a team of Clydesdales, Craig Underwood posed for photos with a posse of suburbanites and city slickers before taking them on a wagon ride around his farm in eastern Ventura County.

This isn’t exactly where he thought his career would lead. His family has farmed in these parts for four generations, raising vegetables for markets around the world. But today, the 62-year-old grower is pushing a cash crop of a different kind.

Underwood has created the equivalent of an agricultural amusement park amid the Southern California sprawl of tract homes and shopping malls, providing an authentic farm experience to people hungry to reconnect with their rural roots.

More than 100,000 people a year visit the farm, where visitors can climb hay bales, pick their own strawberries, and, for a nominal fee, feed veggies to rabbits and cows.

“Everybody looks at farm life as an idyllic way to live, and they want in some way to experience that,” said Underwood, adding that entertainment farming now makes up a third of his business. “More and more, we want to be able to return people to the farm. And in today’s environment, it really helps us stay competitive.”

Across California, there is a growing convergence between agriculture and entertainment as small farms turn to a bit of showbiz to survive.

Perhaps fittingly in this entertainment capital, more than 600 farms around the state now offer a direct-marketing component, a fivefold increase over the past decade. In addition to traditional enticements such as fruit stands and pick-your-own plots, growers are carving mazes in cornfields, opening dude ranches and setting up pony rides and petting zoos to draw customers eager to experience life on the farm.

Dubbed agritourism or agritainment, the movement is steadily picking up steam as associations form to promote entertainment farming and jurisdictions relax regulations to make it easier to launch such ventures. Agritourism now generates an estimated $75 million statewide, said Desmond Jolly, director of the University of California Small Farm Center in Davis.

Though that represents a fraction of California’s $30 -billion-a-year farm economy, Jolly said that for some farmers the additional income can mean the difference between staying afloat or drowning in a sea of red ink.

“It’s no longer seen as a novelty,” said Jolly, whose center keeps a public database of agritourism operations and provides guidance to farmers looking to start such ventures. “We’re now looking at the farm as something that has assets beyond just what it grows.”

Facing a mound of regulations and a surge of foreign competitors, Central Valley farmer Paul Fantozzi set out to earn extra money three years ago by carving a maze in a cornfield along Interstate 5 near the community of Patterson. Each fall, thousands of visitors pay $7 each ($5 for children) for the privilege of walking miles of narrow pathways flanked by towering green stalks.

Fantozzi, 45, figures the maze now makes up about 5% of his farm revenue. He said he’d like to grow the entertainment component so that it constitutes at least half of the business.

“I see a need to do that in the future just to survive,” said the fourth-generation farmer. Markets for small farmers “are disappearing in California so we have to find some other way.”

Entertainment farming is not for everyone. Many growers guard their privacy and are reluctant to allow strangers on their properties. And there are some who question whether such endeavors are legitimate farming enterprises and worry that farming could quickly become lost amid the amusements, a la Knotts Berry Farm.

The Buena Park theme park could be considered one of California’s first agri-entertainers. It started in the early 1920s as a small berry farm and branched out gradually to sell jams, jellies and fried chicken dinners, primarily as a means of staving off Depression-era hardships, according to the park’s website. Seeds for the modern-day operation were planted in the 1940s with the creation of an Old West Ghost Town, the first of the amusement park’s six themed areas.

Then there are looming concerns about liability and insurance.

Watsonville grower Nita Gizdich, an agritourism pioneer and regular speaker at conferences to promote the movement, said she has talked to plenty of farmers who want to give it a try but are leery of the risks. And she knows some who have been put out of business by too many insurance claims.

After 40 years of having people out to her 90-acre farm to pick their own fruit, taste a slice of homemade pie or comb through her antique shop and gift store, the 70-year-old apple and berry grower considers herself lucky that she’s never had an accident.

Like others, Gizdich said she and her husband, Vince, weren’t exactly looking to become tour guides when they started. In fact, she said, some growers thought she was crazy for opening her farm to outsiders.

“If we hadn’t done this, I’m sorry, but you wouldn’t be talking to me today,” she said. “This is how we survived.”

Such endeavors have long been staples in parts of Europe. England and Italy have nationwide organizations that offer farm-stay directories at tourist and visitor centers, and in France hikers and cyclists can follow a network of trails from one farm to the next.

In the United States, some East Coast and Midwest states have in recent years embraced similar concepts. The North Carolina Department of Agriculture has opened an agritourism office, and the New York Department of Agriculture maintains a list of nearly 2,000 farms with activities for the public. Vermont now tracks income and other data about agritourism, and Indiana officials are working to compile a county-by-county list of such enterprises.

California comes late to the game. But over the last decade, much has been done to transform entertainment farming from a curiosity to a bona fide business.

Six years ago, state lawmakers made it easier for farmers to open their properties to overnight guests. Some counties, including El Dorado and Ventura, have eased restrictions on growers who want to give visitors a taste of country living through festivals, fairs and other farm activities.

Associations have formed in Sonoma County, Yolo County and along the Central Coast to map out farm trails and publicize farm-themed events.

Even universities are responding to the shift. Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s vaunted agriculture program now offers courses on agritourism and wine tourism as part of a curriculum on sustainable farming.

“There’s a lot of thought going into what types of activities smaller operators can provide to supplement their incomes,” said David Wehner, dean of Cal Poly’s agriculture department.

It used to be that such activities were simply sidelines meant to supplement wholesale operations. But increasingly, they are becoming big business for small farmers, and in some cases make up most of what they do.

Take Impossible Acres in Davis. Katie and Clyde Kelly started that family farm nearly a decade ago specifically as an agritourism enterprise. Farming at the edge of the Sacramento urban area, they lure thousands of visitors each year from surrounding cities with a pick-your-own operation, school tours and, in the fall, a pumpkin patch featuring tractor rides, hay mazes and a barn full of cuddly animals.

There is no charge to visit the farm. Fruit is priced by the pound, admission to the animal center is $2 per child and a tractor ride costs $1 per child.

Although they both come from farming families, neither was in the business when they came out from St. Louis to sharecrop land owned by an ailing family member. Today, the couple and their two children, Jonathan, 14, and Natalie, 12, run every facet of the operation.

For visitors to the farm, it’s a window into another way of life, Katie Kelley said.

“They are looking for some kind of entertainment they can’t get in the city, something unique and a little more wholesome,” she said. “We’re not just selling produce, we’re selling an experience.”

Of course, it helps small farmers too, especially at a time when many are being squeezed by increased regulations and restrictions. In Ventura County, where voters have enacted tough growth-control laws that essentially put farmland off-limits to development, there is growing recognition that more needs to be done to help farmers make ends meet.

To that end, the Board of Supervisors recently adopted regulations making it easier for farmers to start bed-and-breakfast operations, stage farm-themed festivals and open their properties for retreats.

Tim Cohen, who owns and operates the Rancho Temescal dude ranch in Piru, was among those who lobbied for the changes, saying the county, with its proximity to Los Angeles and other urban centers, is in a unique position to trade on its rural roots.

He should know. Five years ago, he bought the 6,000-acre ranch and a neighboring hotel, transforming them both into tourist destinations.

Visitors can ride horses, run cattle and harvest fruit from more than 500 acres of orchards and row crops. The ranch also is available for weddings, film shoots and corporate retreats. And the white-columned hotel, a historical landmark that anchors Piru’s downtown, has been converted into a full-service inn and restaurant where ranch guests can bed down after a long day on the trail.

As farmers in need of extra revenue, “we always have to be thinking what else we can do, and tourism is definitely another avenue,” said Cohen, 38.

It wasn’t even called agritourism when Craig Underwood first invited the public onto his property a quarter-century ago. With commodity prices falling, he opened a farm stand three days a week in rural Somis and followed that 11 years ago by launching a similar operation near Moorpark.

Both have grown substantially over the years.

In addition to providing local produce, both businesses feature animal centers and you-pick operations. The farm near Moorpark also plays host to school tours, birthday parties, an animal show and a fall harvest festival.

There are picnic areas and pony rides, an outdoor classroom and an inflatable bounce house in the shape of a cow. Youngsters can tear around on tricycles amid a maze of haystacks, and a farm center features a collection of goats that scale 40-foot-high planks. General admission to the animal center is $3, but in true amusement park style, visitors can buy a season pass for $20.

Today, entertainment farming provides a vital revenue source for Underwood in an increasingly competitive market.

“We started all this to try to get people out here to buy produce. Now people come out to enjoy the day and buy some produce on their way home,” said Underwood, before guiding a couple of Clydesdales named Wally and Mack around a strawberry field where customers were picking their own fruit.

“Frankly, I think the public is hungry for this kind of thing,” he said. “Along the way, we want to educate people about farming, too. Hopefully, we’re building future customers by getting them out to the farm.”