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CHARLESTON -- 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 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.”
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