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As cities sprawl, farms are next tourist attractions
By Kathleen Dayton
Staff Writer
As an increasing number of homes and businesses replace the rural landscape, farmers across the country are looking for ways to compete in the marketplace and preserve their way of life.
For some, turning the farm into a tourist attraction has become a way to boost business.
“Agritourism is something the state is trying to promote and we’re trying to keep small farmers in business,” said Ann Limehouse Irvin, co-owner of Irvin House Vineyards on Wadmalaw Island. “Some people put honey bees on their property, or it might be a ‘U-pick,’ or they might bring in school tours, just to let people know they are there and you can buy their produce.”
Irvin grew up on a Johns Island farm and started the vineyard with her husband Jim Irvin in 2000. A former schoolteacher, Irvin said she brings her passion for teaching to the tours and events that take place at the vineyard, many of which are free.
“Whatever you like to do, that can be part of your business and people love it,” Irvin said. “If you have a passion for something, it shows.”
Visitors who tour the vineyard account for 75% of its wine sales, she said. Sales have increased about 50% year-over-year since 2003.
Agritourism was unheard of a couple of generations ago, but changing times have turned the humble farm into an exotic setting.
“If you’re not around farming that much, it becomes an attraction,” Irvin said.
Another Wadmalaw Island farm is charging down the agritourism path with tram tours and a gift shop offering its tea among other enticements.
The Charleston Tea Plantation, operated by the Bigelow Tea Co., is North America’s only tea farm and is open to the public Wednesday through Saturday. It is also part of an annual group tour that includes other area attractions including Magnolia Plantation and Gardens and historic Summerville. On May 12, the tea plantation will host its First Flush Festival to celebrate the first emerging crop of the year.
Bill Hall, a Charleston Tea Plantation partner and third-generation tea expert, said the tourism aspect required facilities to be built to accommodate tourists, including one where the tea-making process is demonstrated.
“If we weren’t accommodating the visitors, it would have been less costly for us, but we took the view that the tourism side can eventually help subsidize the whole farm, once the buildings are paid for,” Hall said. “It would be difficult to do tea on its own without the ag-tourism.”
Agricultural tourism has helped Boone Hall Plantation in Mount Pleasant remain a working plantation even as it serves as a tourist attraction. Boone Hall recently held its Strawberry Festival and has U-pick fields open to the public from spring through fall.
There are Gullah performances three times a day with storyteller Sharon Murray, who tells tales in traditional Gullah speech and then translates them into modern English, and there are Front Porch Plays currently being performed twice a day by members of Theatre 99. The fall season features a pumpkin patch and haunted house, plus a six-acre corn maze.
“In some way or another, Boone Hall is agritourism from special events to the normal tourists that come in to see the oldest working plantation in the country,” said marketing director Max Sterling.
Admissions increased about 5% in 2006 over 2005, Sterling said, and the he expects another 5% increase this year over 2006.
Amanda Manning, president of Edible Lowcountry magazine and Culinary Tours of Charleston, said culinary tours are another emerging trend connecting people with local agriculture.
“We’re trying to educate people about agriculture and its role and importance,” Manning said. “People are yearning to get back to real food and local food and get to experience what a farm is like, because we’re about two generations removed now from being on the farm.”
Culinary Tours of Charleston offers three different tours a week, including one that introduces people to locally grown food and how it is prepared in some of the best restaurants in Charleston. Another tour focuses on history and the dining and entertainment customs of past centuries, and another includes a trip to the Charleston Farmers Market.
Becky Walton, spokeswoman for the S.C. Department of Agriculture, describes agritourism as the merger of the state’s two most important industries.
“Tourism is our number one industry in the state and agriculture is number two. It just makes sense to merge the two,” Walton said.
State Agriculture Commissioner Hugh Weathers said the state is trying to grow agritourism and has established a 240-mile S.C. National Heritage Corridor from Charleston County to Oconee County that highlights history and culture as well as agriculture and the natural landscape. A group of more than 30 farmers involved in agritourism have also formed the S.C. National Heritage Corridor Farmers Association.
“Although they have different approaches to the same goal, the thing that impresses you about this group is their willingness to promote each other’s business,” Weathers said.
Helen Legare, who owns Legare Farms on Johns Island with her brother and sister, is a ninth-generation farmer who said agritourism supplements her income.
The farm holds regular spring field trips for school children, a Sweet Corn Festival on the second Saturday every June and summer farm camps for children. The farm also sells some of its produce, meat, jams and jellies.
“Agritourism has become very important to us for a couple of reasons,” Legare said. “It brings a lot of income into our farm, but the main reason we do it has nothing to do with income. It’s about educating the public about something they no longer know anything about. You just don’t have the connection to the farm that you once had.”
Legare and her family farm 300 acres and lease another 50 acres. They used to lease as much as 1,000 acres for farming, but rural land has become scarce.
“We’re growing houses now on Johns Island, not crops,” Legare said. “We’re certainly not getting rich farming, but it would break our hearts if we lost this property. I would hate it if, after nine generations, we were the ones to let it go. That’s one reason we got into agritourism. We’re trying everything we can do to hold on to the farm.”
Kathleen Dayton is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail her at kdayton@charlestonbusiness.com.
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