Market Farming

["Jill Taylor Bussiere" <jdt AT itol.com>]

Jim,
    We have a Agricultural Heritage Resources organization here - it is
nonprofit, and its mission is education about, preservation of, and
enhancing the health of agriculture. It is a really cool organization.

    Part of what the organization does is farm tours.  They vary from school
groups to senior citizens.  People generally love them.  There are several
farms and other agriculturally related businesses that are available for the
tour, and those picking the tour choose which they are interested.  There is
a tour guide for each one too.  They also have surprise tours, where you
don't know where you are going until you get there.  Such things as a modern
dairy farm, a buffalo farm, an ostrich farm, a shared-use processing
kitchen, a cheese factory, an alpaca farm, etc. are on the list.  People do
pay to go on the tour, and each place visited gets a sum of money for having
the tour.  There are, I think, 3 or 4 stops on each tour, and sometimes a
lunch is included, made by the ladies of an historic church in the region,
which also becomes part of the tour.

                                            Jill
>
> Do any of you charge for tours to non-customers.  We don't have the staff
> to do field trips, but a B&B that we work with is interested in farm
> tours for her guests, most from outside our customer range.  We estimate
> most would stay 1 to 2 hours, but there is the down time in waiting, no
> shows, etc.
> Thanks
> Jim