Looking for a farm or ranch experience?

Return to Greetings from Imperial County!

This weekend, you're in luck. You can bring your favorite children to Kids Day on the Farm in San Luis Obispo County to churn butter, plant sunflowers, press cider, make a cornhusk doll and lots more. You can learn draft horse driving, go on a calf feeding tour, and enjoy bluegrass music at the Heartland Festival in Merced County, take a bus tour from Berkeley to pick peaches at Frog Hollow Farm in Brentwood, shop for apple butter at the Gravenstein Apple Fair in Sebastopol, or hike to the top of the hill to see great views of San Francisco Bay on a Petaluma organic farm.

All of these events, and lots more, are listed on www.calagtour.org, the searchable online directory of California's agricultural tourism operations, hosted by the UC Small Farm Program for use by visitors looking for a farm or ranch to visit. Visitors will find farm stands with fresh-picked produce, pick-your-own berry patches, corn mazes, pumpkin patches, guest ranches, farms offering tours, classes, workshops, camps, farm stays, festivals, wedding venues, and much more. You can search the directory by county or by activity,
or you can use the calendar to find special events. The website is getting more popular every week since we worked with the ANR communications team to add the calendar and the UC Food Blog to keep it looking fresh for visitors searching for adventure and education.

If you are a working farmer or rancher operating an agritourism business or organizing agritourism events, we invite you to complete the directory application or the event listing application online so we can include your business and events in the directory. The listings and event postings are always free. You can also include a picture with your event posting.

With more than eighty-five percent of Californians living in cities of at least one million people, most of us don't know the people who grow and raise our food, and most of us don't get many chances to visit farms or ranches. A growing number of farmers and ranchers are opening their land to visitors by starting enterprises that offer urban and suburban people a chance to experience agricultural life.

These agritourism operations serve the triple purposes of bringing additional revenue to the growers, building connections between urban and rural communities, and giving the producers the chance to sell farm products directly to the public right at the farm. An apple pie bought straight from the apple ranch pie shop will just taste better than one bought in town!

Agritourism is a growing business in California. Farmers and ranchers who would like more information about starting agritourism enterprises may be interested in the agritourism section of the Small Farm Program website, and may want to subscribe to the AgTour Connections newsletter.

Have a great weekend out of town!