AgribusinessUS agritourism earned $1.26 billion in 2022, up 12% from 2017, and three family farms in Georgia, Indiana and Pennsylvania describe how pick-your-own fruit, pumpkins and animal encounters became their main business.
OrganicThe Duguids of Arnes, Manitoba, added cut-flower sunflowers to a regenerative grazing cover crop, so the same field now feeds their cattle and draws visitors to u-pick days.
VegetablesAt Butters Farms near St. Thomas, decorative pumpkins and gourds are about 10% of production but around 50% of income, a sign of how diversification and agritourism are paying for some Canadian farms.
OpinionWriting for World Tourism Day, agricultural economist and former secretary Sikder Anwar argues that adding tourism to the same farmland would diversify farmers' income, citing Italy and proposing agritourism zones and a national strategy.
AgribusinessAn Oregon State University survey of nearly 500 agritourism visitors to 11 farms found that recommendations from friends and family, not social media, are how most people find farms to visit, and that visitors want to learn.
LivestockA 500-cow family dairy near Galena, Illinois, is earning extra income from farm tours, cheese and merchandise while higher corn prices and summer cooling bills squeeze its milk margins.
OpinionShariful Islam Roni argues that, as in Italy, New Zealand and Australia, agritourism could give Bangladeshi farmers several incomes from the same land, provided farming comes first and tourism second.
A new Farm to Stay Grant Program opening in November will help US farmers and ranchers turn working farms into overnight stays or on-farm experiences, as farm-stay earnings grow.
At the Asian Tourism Fair, Sukher Khamar Agro Limited showed plans for a 100-room resort beside a 400-cattle farm, fish ponds and a 1 MW solar plant in Kahalu, Bogura, with more than a thousand partners from 21 countries.
Kamal Hossain's orchard on the Kuakata-Misripara road stops passing cars; the Kuakata tour operators' president Ruman Imtiaz Tushar sees farming and tourism meeting, and Kalapara agriculture officer Arafat Hossain says the right variety, soil and water management and organic manure make crops possib
Growers paddle dinghies of fresh guava into the Atghar-Kuriana canal at Nesarabad for buyers from Dhaka, Chattogram and Khulna; the Padma Bridge has lifted demand and tourists follow; DAE deputy director Soumitra Sarker wants a mini cold store and UNO Amit Dutta is planning visitor facilities.
