Were you planning to head to Seiple Farms in Bath to cut your own Christmas tree this year? Not so fast.
For years, the farm has been a popular destination for pick-your-own pumpkins and Christmas trees. But in 2019, it sold out of mature trees and it isn’t open this season. More time is needed for the saplings to grow.
Such is the world of agritourism and agritainment in the Lehigh Valley, in which area farms invite the public to spend time in revenue-earning activities ranging from pick-your-own apples, pumpkins and Christmas trees, to enjoying corn mazes, hayrides, petting zoos and even apple-shooting cannons.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic started in early 2020, agritourism in the region has grown like a weed. With many restaurants and entertainment venues closed for months, people got tired of being stuck inside, isolated from friends and family, but still feared close contact with others. They took to outdoor activities — such as strawberry and apple picking — like bees to honey.
“Farmers saw people coming out in numbers like never before,” said Allison Czapp, director of Buy Fresh Buy Local of the Lehigh Valley. “They wanted something to do. This was outdoors, it was open. It was really a boon for some of the farmers offering agritourism. You had some pick-your-own farmers who were getting completely picked out, like in a day.”
Czapp’s group, which works with farmers in Lehigh and Northampton counties and a sliver of Berks, had 43 partners last year offering some form of agritourism activities.
“It’s one other way for farmers to diversify their revenue streams and have a small layer of security on the income they’re able to generate,” Czapp said.
The pandemic and its early panic about potential food shortages, supply chain woes and empty supermarket shelves also sparked interest in local sources of food.
“If we can ensure that we have viable farms in the Lehigh Valley, then we can ensure we have food security,” she said. “If we’re not supporting it in the good times, it might not be here in the bad times. Watching the ways farmers activated during the pandemic and worked to get food to people in need and deal with a huge influx of customers, it was stunning.”
The terms agritourism and agritainment are sometimes used interchangeably, but Czapp said she views activities such as pick-your-own farms and wineries with tasting rooms as agritourism; attractions such as go-carts on a farm are more agritainment.
North Whitehall Township this month approved an agritourism ordinance that allows for activities that are “incidental to and directly supportive of the agricultural use of the property.” But the ordinance prohibited new restaurants, taverns, breweries, microbreweries and flea markets, while grandfathering in existing attractions, according to the township’s solicitor, Lisa Young.
Pennsylvania’s Agritourism Activity Protection Act 27, which went into effect Aug. 29, defines agritourism as “a farm-related tourism or farm-related entertainment activity that takes place on agricultural land and allows members of the general public, whether or not for a fee, to tour, explore, observe, learn about, participate in or be entertained by an aspect of agricultural production, harvesting, husbandry or rural lifestyle that occurs on the farm.”
Agritourism started in the second half of the 19th century in Italy, according to Claudia Schmidt, an assistant professor of marketing and local/regional food systems at Penn State University who studies agritourism in the U.S.
“This is when you had aristocrats escape the city in the summertime,” Schmidt said.
According to a 2018 survey, the No. 1 reason farmers offer agritourism is to increase their income. But it’s not the only reason, Schmidt said.
“A lot of people want to go into agritourism because they enjoy educating the broader public on agriculture,” she said.
The downside for farmers is that with agritourism comes aggravation. The influx of crowds brings a loss of privacy and added stress, the survey found.
That includes complaints from neighbors.
“It’s mostly traffic concerns,” Schmidt said. “If there’s a farm and it used to be quieter, and then all of a sudden you have a lot of traffic happening … a lot of neighbors are bothered by that.”
Brian F. Moyer, an education program associate with the Penn State Extension in Lehigh County, and founder and manager of the Skippack Farmers Market from 1999 to 2009, agrees that agritourism comes with some headaches for the farmer.
Moyer said welcoming the public to the farm for activities means an increase in the farmer’s liability insurance costs. It also means managing traffic and patrons who may not know the farm’s boundaries.
But that aggravation can be worth it in a nation where traditional farming doesn’t always pay the bills.
About 96% of farm households get income from nonfarm sources, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Those sources include wages from an off-farm job or pensions and investment income.
“On average, off-farm income contributed 82 percent of total income, or $101,638, for all family farms in 2019,” a report by the USDA Economic Research Service found.
Unable to match the scale of production at large farms that keep commodity prices low, small and medium size farms struggle as their costs — such as labor, seeds, fertilizer, insurance and land — continue to rise.
When family farms struggle to be viable, agritourism can be a key to their survival, Moyer said.
“The growth of it here is, in many cases, opportunities for the next generation to stay on the farm,” he said.
Margie Peterson is a freelance writer.
