Iowa looks to harness natural strengths to grow agritourism operations

IOWA CITY — As birds sang overhead, Hayley Crabb set two blankets down on the ground overlooking the vibrant green trees and fields that make up Wilson’s Orchard. Her 2-year-old daughter, Jean Slezak, munched on some fresh berries they’d just picked from the fields below as they waited for their pizza to be ready.

“Good raspberries, huh?” Crabb smiled at her daughter, who couldn’t keep her hands off the carton of plump red berries they’d collected.

Since moving to Iowa City last summer, Crabb said she and her entourage have come to Wilson’s a few times a month, mostly on Friday family evenings. The kids love the free tractor rides and the berry-picking, and Crabb appreciates music nights or other family-friendly events.

Wilson’s is a place where they can stimulate their energetic toddlers, reduce screentime and enjoy the outdoors with a refreshing beverage. Crabb’s drink of choice on a recent Friday was a sparkling cider.

“I think businesses like Wilson's that add these extra touches like the free tractor rides, live music, the pizza oven, it's just another compelling reason to come out here,” Crabb said. “It's clear they put a lot of effort into this space and also try to make it affordable and accessible to people.”

Although Iowa is a national and global leader in agriculture, interest still is growing in fully harnessing the potential of these agritourism businesses to draw residents and visitors like Crabb and her family out to play and spend their spare cash.

More businesses and government entities are looking to capitalize on the Hawkeye State’s natural assets and entrepreneurial farm operations to further grow agritourism — an industry of agricultural businesses that engage the public in their farm operations, whether through farm or winery tours, hay rides, pumpkin patches, berry-picking or other activities.

In the Corridor, local governments are working to boost agritourism operations, seeing its potential to attract visitors to the region. State officials looking to boost Iowa’s national profile see similar opportunity in the industry and have elevated their focus on programming to support agritourism businesses.

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Visitors help sustain farming operations

Nicholas Iseman, who lives in Iowa City but grew up on a farm near Brighton, walked toward the entrance of Wilson’s and paused to snack on some of the raspberries he’d picked. Several yards behind him, the strawberry fields beckoned with a powerful sweet, fruity aroma.

Although it would be great to see more agritourism operations around the state, he said, that may be difficult as most of Iowa’s agriculture is dedicated to crops that don’t readily support tourism uses.

“Out here, you’ve got strawberries and raspberries where you can just walk up with a little carton and fill them up,” said Iseman, 22. “Corn and beans is very much a combine thing. People don't want people trampling through all their stuff. Deer and whatnot do enough damage through it, much less tourists through your cornfield.”

Iowa may be the top producer of corn and soybeans, but it lags behind other U.S. states in successfully branding itself as a destination for its agricultural operations.

Penn State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences in early June shared findings that agritourism and direct sales activities are most prevalent in the Northeast, accounting for about one-fifth of all U.S. farms that offer some form of agritourism, including direct sales. The research is based on U.S. Department of Agriculture Census of Agriculture data.

Diane Van Wyngarden, state tourism specialist with Iowa State University Extension, said Iowa has more traditional row-crop and livestock farming, whereas other states may use smaller tracts of land for their agricultural uses to plant specialty fruit that is more likely to draw consumers.

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Van Wyngarden said the Iowa Economic Development Authority learned through its statewide strategic planning process that agritourism is a gap in its programming and is making more of an effort to provide information and marketing for agritourism.

It’s growing as a statewide initiative, she said, and traditional farmers are learning agritourism can provide another income stream. ISU Extension is working with state tourism officials to offer classes to better educate farmers on beginning or growing their agritourism business.

“There are people who have a traditional farming background, but they want to do it a different way or they say, ‘My passion is this type of products or fruit or vegetable or animal,’ and so they really want the opportunity to do that on their own,” Van Wyngarden said. “But to generate a revenue, they realize they need to generate income by inviting visitors and sharing.”

Take an agritourism class

ISU Extension will offer a class for those interested in learning from Iowa’s leading agritourism operators and experts. It will be held July 25, from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Loess Hills of Missouri Valley, Iowa. Register by July 5. There is a $10 fee. Visit go.iastate.edu/DKHNMN.

Van Wyngarden said agritourism operators need to have “three Ps” to succeed: passion for what you do, personality to engage the public and perseverance to push forth despite challenges.

Agritourism operators say weather is among the greatest challenges they face — influencing whether visitors even come to their operations on a given day or, at its most extreme, damaging their property. And as human-caused climate change worsens, the weather is only getting less predictable.

“If you were a customer looking to come out to our farm, you would check the weather probably before you come, so it can really make or break us,” said Sammy Petersen, who manages Bloomsbury Farm in Atkins with her family. “We had a very successful fall last year because the weather was good. It definitely can and will happen where we don't have a great weather season.”

That’s pushed the Petersens to get more creative — opening at different times during the spring, summer and fall to spread the risk, never too reliant on one season’s success. Bloomsbury held an Easter festival called Bunny Bash, has a wine and flower festival starting July 28 and opens its haunted attraction Scream Acres in the fall.

Running a heritage farm that’s stood for more than 150 years helps give Bloomsbury an edge to weather the challenges, Petersen said.

“Our unique passion for sharing our home with the community is something that makes us special too,” Petersen said, especially with each family member’s unique strengths to draw from.

Policy push to promote agritourism

As consumers want more of a physical experience to complement time spent in the digital realm, Paul Rasch, owner of Wilson’s Orchard, said that demand seems to have fueled policymakers’ recent interest in supporting agritourism.

At the state level, operators said the Iowa Agricultural Tourism Promotion Act that Gov. Kim Reynolds signed into law in 2021 was a major boost for their farms. It acknowledges the inherent risks of farming and limits the potential liability of agricultural tourism farms in certain circumstances.

“It’s always top of mind for us to keep safety of our guests at the forefront of all our projects and plans, but we are a farm,” Petersen said. “We’re on uneven ground. We have a petting zoo. It’s just a different environment.”

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Another law enacted in 2020 bars counties from requiring a permit for agricultural producers offering “agricultural experiences” such as a harvest dinner, diminishing bureaucratic hurdles operators face to run their operations.

In addition to the IEDA’s increased focused on tapping into the economic potential of agritourism, the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship also has looked to support the industry. Petersen noted the Choose Iowa grant program, intended to help applicants try new ways to process or sell agricultural products, can give a boost to existing or up-and-coming businesses

Locally, the noise of agricultural processes coming from the operations or dust generated from visitors venturing up gravel roads to reach the sites may pose a political problem for some communities, Rasch said.

“Local governments have to walk a tightrope between supporting or being seen as supporting local farming and agritourism operations and taking account for the kind of people that are living out in rural communities, increasingly, who want everything quiet and dust free,” Rasch said.

In Linn County, officials are drafting a policy to promote agritourism businesses in Iowa’s second-largest county. The policy is anticipated to return to the Board of Supervisors in the coming months after the Linn County Farm Bureau provides input, Planning and Development Director Charlie Nichols said.

So far, Nichols said the county is not planning to require site plans for agritourism uses that fall below “Tier 2” agritourism uses such as restaurants, breweries, wedding venues or a mix of those uses.

County officials visited Bloomsbury Farm in Atkins, Colony Pumpkin Patch in North Liberty and Walker Homestead in Iowa City to study how these businesses operate to guide Linn County’s policy development. Nichols said they found these uses change from year to year — an operator might start up a haunted house, for instance — so policy language needs to be flexible and encompass the dynamic nature of these uses.

“We want to be ‘agritourism friendly,’ and we view this type of use as a great way for our farmers to generate extra income while educating the public on agriculture,” Nichols said.

Fueling industry growth also is a priority in Johnson County, where businesses are in the early stages of banding together to strengthen the area’s reputation as an agritourism destination.

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Sarah Thompson, director of rural development for the Iowa City Area Development Group, said her position emerged as a result of Johnson County leaders looking to better serve rural parts of the predominantly urban county. Agritourism businesses there started to meet regularly earlier this year and are working to grow their group, mostly by word-of-mouth so far.

Eventually, Thompson said the group is likely to take on more advocacy for favorable policies at the local and state levels. For now, they hope to craft a regional brand to help Johnson County and eventually neighboring counties be recognized as a destination.

“We have all these cool places, but even Wilson’s will say sometimes there are people in Iowa City who don’t know we’re here and we’ve been here 25 years,” Thompson said. “ … That’s a long-term goal is to work regionally as well to try to get people to consider Iowa or Johnson County, especially, as a destination — as a place you go that’s fun and there are all kinds of things to do.”

‘More of an investment’ needed

As agritourism grows, Van Wyngarden said the industry is changing quickly in Iowa.

In the coming years, she anticipates food will remain a universally popular facet of Iowa’s agritourism growth. There’s interest in local foods and learning how to grow your own produce. Some are looking to food preservation and sampling homegrown foods in new recipes.

“Everyone loves good food,” Van Wyngarden said. “They realize they can do it themselves and it may be easier, it may be more fun than what they realize.”

In the Corridor, where many of the agritourism operations’ visitors tend to live relatively nearby, operators expressed less of a need for overnight accommodations. But in rural areas, visitors may be looking for more places to stay overnight to get a feel for what a night is like on the farm.

Overall, Rasch said in a state like Iowa, stronger efforts to market the produce and experiences that farms such as Wilson’s can provide are a “great unfulfilled potential.” If tapped, he said it would likely lure visitors from major cities in neighboring states to visit.

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He envisioned state funds supporting an initiative like the federal American Rescue Plan-funded Destination Iowa tourism program to build the state’s agritourism brand.

“We all know that agriculture can be seen as having a bit of a black eye with respect to confinement farming, with respect to use of pesticides. On the other hand, the idea of farms still is strong and very popular in the consumer mind and Iowa’s brand (is) very associated with the good things of farming as well,” Rasch said, such as friendliness, common sense, salt-of-the-earth individuals.

At the state level, Crabb said it feels like there's not much investment in natural spaces and public lands. She hopes to see Iowa change that trend.

“I know that this has to be such a challenging venture for a small-business owner to be able to start up and sustain — that they wouldn't be able to do it without state support,” Crabb said.

Comments: (319) 398-8494; marissa.payne@thegazette.com