Growing Agroforestry Farm Profitability and Community via Educational Agritourism

Commodities

Practices

In a globalized, commercialized, and technologized world, many people struggle to maintain connections to nature and, correspondingly, our health and happiness.

At the same time, we are losing our farms, small towns, and place-based food systems. Farmland is lost each year to development, fewer young people farm and many move to urban areas, with the result that most U.S. consumers are at least 3 generations removed from life on the farm, and not only our deep-seated need to connect with the land, but also the education that farms provide. This endangers our knowledge and skills needed to grow food, maintain traditions, and steward our ecosystems.

To maintain these many benefits and stay viable - small farms need practical methods to compete with the many challenges they face today like development pressure, record-high land prices, inflation, high capital needs, labor issues, and corporate monopolies.

Agroforestry is resurfacing as a profitable, regenerative farming method, yet remains unknown to many farmers and consumers. Although, it brings many benefits to farms, it requires patience as trees mature and produce marketable crops. In the meantime, farmers need sources of revenue to make agroforestry a more attractive option.

To address the above problems, this project trials agroforestry agritourism with an educational and place-based focus.

Agritourism is a recognized profitable enterprise that helps farmers capitalize on their existing resources, sustain their business long-term, and make regenerative farming more viable. Educational agritourism (as opposed to recreational, hospitality, or direct-market agritourism) on agroforestry farms presents a huge opportunity to familiarize farmers and the public with the many benefits of agroforestry while also building:

• a new market for agroforestry farmers (especially as they wait for trees to mature)
• a new niche for agritourism with a growing regenerative farming method
• community health with renewed connections to our traditions, land, and each other

This project also explores economic development of farm assets. Hosting agritourism activities provides many farmers new opportunities to utilize existing barns or other agricultural outbuildings, which often have outlived their original purpose yet carry substantial maintenance costs. Profitable on-farm events allow farmers to maintain historic (and often sentimental) structures that otherwise deteriorate and are costly to remove. Additionally, barns and other farm buildings provide unique, charismatic experiences for customers and community who are unlikely to be exposed to these experiences elsewhere and enjoy their aesthetic value. Ultimately, this creates more local support to maintain small farms.

Additionally, on-farm educational activities build:

• community health by providing social, physical, and outdoor activities
• local food systems by connecting community members to the people and places where their food is grown
• environmental health as farmers and the public learn methods to steward land and ecosystems
• fundamental, educational spaces for a wide variety of people

Revitalizing foodways and agricultural traditions through education on small farms, provides urgent societal needs, like:

• Stability and continuity while we adapt to an uncertain and fast-changing world
• Group unity, a sense of belonging, and empathy for others
• Connection to our shared humanity and our place in the natural world
• Connection to land and nature to boost physical and mental health
• Connection to safe, nutritious food and the knowledge and skills to grow it

To accomplish this, our project objectives are:

• Conduct field research on farms in our region - Qualitative data collection of educational & traditional social events on small farms (agroforestry farms as much as possible) and how they teach participants environmental skills and knowledge and provide connection to land and community
  • Visit and interview farmers about their observations on their most and least impactful on-farm educational programs
  • Attend area education farm events, farm tours, and field days for image, video, and narrative collection of farmers and participants
  • Collect community response to project media via online metrics and personal comments
  • Interview other local experts in agritourism, food systems, and Wisconsin/Upper Midwest heritage
• Showcase field research results via blog posts, videos, and social media (with assistance from FoxRAP, our project's nonprofit partner) to build engagement in the project with farmers, consumers, and other community stakeholders
• Trial the best practices from the research results
  • Hold two on-farm workshops (traditional seed nut saving and propagation, utilizing nuts in landscapes and traditional recipes) and one classic nut roast and harvest festival
  • Survey farmers & community participants post-events to assess agroforestry knowledge/skills gained, improved feelings of health and well-being, new connections to community and heritage, intentions to apply knowledge/skills gained on their own farm/land
• Produce a final report that serves as a launchpad to greater area agroforestry agritourism, on-farm Upper Midwest heritage revival, and community building