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Agritourism Becomes a Larger Conversation

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By James Goche'

Dustings of December snow swirled around Pateros Washington, marking the coming of winter to the place where the Methow River flows down out the Cascades and into the chilly waters of the Upper Columbia. This was the setting for the ?Breaking New Ground? conference? (www.county.wsu.edu /okanogan /agritourism) sponsored by Okanogan County's WSU Extension office and the kickoff for a regional conversation about agritourism.

Curtis Beus, WSU Extension Director and a leading proponent of Agritourism in the Pacific Northwest organized the conference and moderated the panel discussions. He was joined by Brent Warner, owner of the White Loaf Ridge marketing and production company which works with individual farmers and governments across North America to promote local agriculture. Warner is also the former executive director of Farmers? Markets Canada and the Canadian Agritourism Work Group.

The conference was packed with workshops and presentations by local farmers, cider and wine makers, and community agricultural associations, finishing up with a tour of local agritourism operations. It also provided a rich networking experience for participants who discovered that they were in agreement on several important points.

The first was that agritourism is a growth-industry and has great potential for diversifying farm incomes and supporting agriculture. A reasonable return to the farmer on his/her investment helps to preserve working lands and provide more fresh food for the public.

The second was that agritourism programs succeed because local farmers and agribusiness people are willing to invest their capital and hard work; to screw up their courage to take risks and try new approaches in promoting their farms and working with their customers. All of the speakers made the point that agritourism takes place ?one farmer at a time?and that farmers need to be able to freely experiment, innovate, and discover what works.

The third point was that local government can often be most helpful in fostering agritourism when it simply gets out of the farmers' way and lets them farm. Speakers emphasized that government officials who want to promote agritourism must listen to farmers and understand their needs but too often fail to do so. One reason cited for this is government's tendency to see agriculture as a regulated land use exercise. Complex and contradictory regulations, high permit fees, vague requirements, and uncertain administration of the law were cited as examples of how local government actions wind up hurting farmers and working against community agritourism efforts.

By the end of the conference, there was a general agreement that local communities have to ?get organized? if they want to grow the agritourism sectors of their economies. Farmers, consumers and others need to develop the means to work together and then use the political power this creates to elect officials and enact laws which support local agriculture.

This is good advice for communities on both sides of the Cascades and especially here in Thurston County where the farming community has expressed continuing concern to County Commissioners about their approach to agritourism.

The Commissioners continue to insist that the "agritourism ordinance" adopted last year helps local agriculture and encourages tourism in the face of growing evidence to the contrary. The County continues to enforce the gerrymandered boundaries of the ordinance's two ?overlay districts? despite growing public demands that they be abolished. Unequal treatment under the law and unfair business advantages provided to only a select few are two of the complaints lodged against the less-that-countywide application of the ordinance.

The County's agritourism committee? is also attracting growing criticism for its arbitrary operation and lack of transparency. The County Farm Bureau has recently sent a letter to the Commissioners asking them to disband this ?committee and start following their own procedures which require public policy issues affecting farming and food production to be routed through County's Agriculture Committee.

This reinforces the lessons of the Okanogan meeting: that communities have to ?get organized? around their agritourism programs if they are to successfully boost local economies, preserve working lands, and produce more locally grown food. These communities must also make sure their government officials understand the importance of local agriculture and that public agencies build working partnerships with local farmers to support it.

Jim Goche' is a local farmer and an active supporter of agritourism and agriculture in the South Sound and statewide. He is also a member of the Thurston County Farm Bureau board, and a member in good standing of the Washington State Bar Association and the Thurston County Bar Association.

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