Posts Tagged: Agritourism
Family grows History Train Adventure from organic dairy roots
Tony Azevedo's father moved the family from Watsonville, where he operated a small dairy, to Stevenson in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley in 1958. Azevedo rented 15 acres of land that had become alkaline through irrigation with no drainage for many years. He put in drainage, worked the land and put it into pasture. Starting with this land and adding 10 or 15 acres at a time, Azevedo developed the 400 acre Double T Ranch as the first organic dairy in the San Joaquin Valley.
Tony Azevedo, with his wife Carol and other family members, kept the organic dairy operating for many years until consolidation and competition in the industry forced them to get out of the dairy business. Fortunately, Tony and Carol had also been growing another passion on the Double T Ranch: The Double T Agriculture Museum and the History Train.
The Double T Agricultural Museum was built as a tribute to all the farm families of the past who have fed Americans. The exhibits reflect the life and times of family farmers and industry from the 1800s to the 1950s. From lovingly restored horse-drawn vehicles and carriages to a full-size restored steam locomotive, the collection is host to many vintage treasures. School-children enjoy visiting the old west town and learning the story of how trains transported California crops throughout the country and brought new life to small towns. Brides can enjoy a ride in an elegant historic horse-drawn carriage before their wedding ceremony at the Double T Ranch venue.
This year, with daughter Arlean Azevedo joining the team, The Double T is inviting the public to enjoy a train journey like no other. Here is how Arlean describes the latest adventure:
"Climb aboard our Historical Dinner Train for an evening of fine dining and a chance to see how the steam locomotive changed agricultural history in the San Joaquin Valley. Your evening will begin with a cocktail hour and a tour of one of California's premier Agricultural Museums. At the sound of the train whistle we'll begin boarding for the two hour virtual reality experience that includes a fifteen minute documentary while enjoying appetizers, followed by dinner. The History Train will leave you with a deep appreciation of what travel was like 100 years ago. Your evening will conclude with dessert and a walk through the “Baggage Car” filled with rail history memorabilia, antiques and collectibles."
Although the next History Train Dinner Tour on May 17, 2019 is sold out, seats are still available for the Saturday June 1, 2019 voyage. Prices are $70 per person and include all beverages, dinner and dessert. Advance reservations and payment are required.
Learn more about the train and reserve your tickets here.
Year One: Organizing the first annual Nevada County Farm Trail Weekend
Nevada County Grown board member Sammie Bass is coordinating the event. Today, a few days before the big weekend, she shared a little bit about the process and challenges of organizing something never done before in Nevada County.
Organizing participating farms and ranches: Sammie started planning the July event in April and May, so, understandably, communication with potential participating farmers was a major challenge. It was difficult to get clear answers from farmers about what tours, product sales and activities each would be offering to visitors, and to make sure that each participating farm was appropriately safe and prepared. Sammie visited each of the farms and worked with the owners to plan parking and safe access. Would room for ten cars be enough? Is the turn into the driveway from a busy road safe enough? She had no way to know.
Permits needed? Nevada County recently adopted new zoning ordinances that clarified that agritourism activities including tours, farm dinners and U-Pick are allowed by right on agricultural zoned lots over five acres. To make sure that all interested farms and ranches qualified under this zoning, Sammie shared her list of fifteen potential participants with the county agricultural commissioner. The Commissioner rejected several on the list as being less than five acres or zoned rural residential rather than agricultural, so not eligible to host visitors on their land without an expensive conditional use permit. However, as a work-around, these few farms are allowed to have farm stands and to sell their products during the event, but not host tours or other activities.
Day-of ticket sales? The Passport Weekend ticket (actually a wristband) is priced at $20 for advance sales and $25 on the day of the event. It was tough to organize enough volunteers to staff check-in and ticket sales tables at each of the twelve participating venues. Therefore, four visitor check-in hubs will be set up at four of the venues. If visitors show up at the other locations without wristbands, the participating farmers and ranchers will include them in tours and activities and instruct them to check in and pay at one of the four check-in hubs for their next stop.
Food? Lunch stop? Since this is the first-ever Nevada County Farm Trail Weekend, and since most of the farms and ranches are not set up to cater food for guests, Sammie investigated inviting a food truck to feed the guests. However, she could not promise more than 150 - 200 visitors total, which is not enough to pay for a food truck's time, labor and travel costs. Instead, the Nevada county Food Bank, one of the stops on the trail, will put on a barbecue, offering lunch for a donation (on Saturday at least) and giving tours of the Food Bank Garden. Farm Trail visitors may want to bring along a picnic this time.
Promotion: Good Day Sacramento came out and took videos, as did CBS13, helping to promote the event. In addition, local newspaper, The Union, interviewed organizers and wrote an article showcasing participating farms and ranches to local readers.
Sponsors? Maybe next year.
Sammie Bass and other Nevada County Grown organizers are expecting about 150 to 200 visitors for the first annual Nevada County Farm Trail Weekend. This will definitely be an adventure. If you see Sammie on the trail, be sure to say hello and thank her for her hard work. Learn more: nevadacountygrown.org/
County Agricultural Ombudsmen Help Bridge the Divide
California agritourism operators report regularly that navigating the permitting and regulatory process is a major challenge for farmers trying to invite the public onto their land for festivals, tours, dinners, classes, lodging or other activities. Some help is now available, at no cost, in some places.
Five Northern California counties offer non-enforcement person-to-person consultation to farmers and ranchers exploring the regulations and permitting requirements for agritourism, food processing or other farm-related activities. If your farm or ranch is located in Marin, Sonoma, San Mateo, Yolo or Solano Counties, you can call your Agricultural Ombudsman or Farmbudsman to discuss your ideas and plans.
County Agricultural Ombudsmen help farmers and ranchers understand what rules and regulations will apply to an individual diversification idea or plan, and will help them to navigate the various permits and departmental approvals that might be required. The ombudsman will make the process approachable and accessible, and will explore options and alternatives with the person planning an expansion or a new activity on his or her farm or ranch, including giving the farmer or rancher a sense of where "red flags" might be in the process. Importantly, these services are confidential. Marin County Agricultural Ombudsman Vince Trotter explained the job this way, "We try to bring the conversation to "How can we make this work?" We don't expedite the process ourselves, but we do try to bring the rancher together with the regulator."
Examples of Agricultural Ombudsmen's help include:
- Helping a rancher understand the state registration process required for a new pond.
- Helping a poultry farmer understand the state, federal and local regulations they needed to confirm to for on-farm commercial slaughtering.
- Helping a pumpkin patch operator know when a permit is required for a farm dinner.
- Explaining the size limits for starting a small winery under an administrative permit.
- Helping a brewery and winery design their expansion to avoid buffer issues
- Researching an existing use permit to clarify that a vineyard operator with short-term lodging was allowed to hold one-day open house events without an additional health department food permit.
In addition to their consultation work with individual farmers and ranchers, most of the agricultural ombudsmen organize useful information online - guides, factsheets and links to common permit applications. See the end of this story for contact information and websites links.
Contact your local Agricultural Ombudsman:
Marin County:
Vince Trotter, Agricultural Ombudsman
tvtrotter@ucanr.edu
415-473-4204
http://growninmarin.org/Resources/Resources_for_Farmers/GIM_Factsheets/
Sonoma County:
Karen Giovannini, Agriculture Ombudsman
klgiov@ucanr.edu
707.565.2328
http://ucanr.edu/sites/CESonomaAgOmbuds/
Solano County:
Sarah Hawkins, Farmbudsman
SolanoFarmbudsman@gmail.com
925-984-4548
https://www.solanocounty.com/depts/county_admin/farmbudsman.asp
Yolo County:
Stephanie Cormier, Farmbudsman
530-406-4800
Stephanie.Cormier@yolocounty.org
San Mateo County:
Adria Arko, Agricultural Ombudsman
adria@sanmateorcd.org
650-712-7765 x 105
https://agwm.smcgov.org/agricultural-ombudsman
Still Dirty at Thirty! Hoes Down Harvest Festival at Full Belly Farm
The Hoes Down Harvest Festival invites all to play on October 7, 2017
Dru gave a spinning demonstration and introduced the visitors to a few sheep. Annie, Dru and two other women in the wreath-making group gave a wreath-making demo and led a tour of the farm. Dru remembers, “ It might have been a potluck; we didn't sell any food. There was some sort of music, probably bluegrass. People walked down to the creek. The trail was all overgrown then; there wasn't a path. It was a miracle that people came, even some people we didn't know! We probably sold about five wreaths that day.” That was the first Hoes Down Harvest Festival and the start of a tradition enjoyed by thousands of Northern Californians.
A few months later, at the annual EcoFarm Conference of California organic farmers, an announcement on the bulletin board invited everyone to the second annual Hoes Down Harvest Festival, a fundraiser for the EcoFarm Conference, tickets $5 a person. There was no going back.
In the early years, creativity thrived on a shoestring budget. Dru recalls, “for three or four years we used to to put up long irrigation pipes and string a huge nylon tarp that had come from Christo's ‘Running Fence' project to make a big tent.” These days, a crew sets up large festival tents and awnings for the event.
After running entirely on volunteer energy for more than fifteen years, the organizers hired a former Full Belly Farm intern, Gwenael Engelskirchen, as part-time Hoes Down coordinator in 2002. Gwenael, who now works with the UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, says she started in late spring. The monthly organizing meetings at Full Belly Farm usually were ten or twenty people – each taking responsibility for an area; music, crafts vendors, kids area, food, even a committee on how to make the festival environmentally friendly. For many years, before biodegradable plates and utensils, Hoes Down organizers borrowed hundreds of dishes from Davis's Whole Earth Festival, which were washed by several shifts of volunteers all day and into the night.
After months of organizing effort, another 400 volunteers show up for the festival to be part of what has become well-managed organized chaos. Gwenael says, “From a farming point of view, you watch the total transformation of a working farm to an event facility and back in a weekend. On Friday the volunteers arrive and set everything up – the tents, the tables, the stages and everything else. On Saturday, thousands of people arrive for the festival and many stay for Sunday tours and classes. On Sunday afternoon, the clean-up crew takes it all down. On Monday, Full Belly is back to work as a working farm.”
All of the proceeds from the Hoes Down Harvest Festival go to non-profit organizations that support sustainable agriculture and rural living. Over its thirty year history, the festival has raised about a million dollars. The 2016 Hoes Down Festival raised about $90,000. None of the money raised has gone to Full Belly Farm; it has all been donated to organic farming and local agricultural organizations. Beneficiaries include the Ecological Farming Association, Community Alliance with Family Farms, agricultural scholarships for local high school students, the local 4H club, Future Farmers of America, and other local organizations.
You are invited to bring friends and family to join the fun!
Full Belly Farm, 16090 County Road 43, Guinda CA 95637?
MAIN FESTIVAL: ?Saturday, October 7, 2017?11am - 11 pm?
BUY YOUR TICKETS HERE!??
Admission Prices?
Adults: $25 online, $30 at the gate?
Children (2-12): $5 - ?Under 2: Free?
Saturday Night Camping: $30 per car - no reservations are needed!
Visit California Farms and Ranches - learn more at www.calagtour.org
UC Cooperative Extension invites community to California Regional Agritourism Summits
The University of California Small Farm Program and UC Cooperative Extension advisors in four California regions are working with local partners to organize Regional Agritourism Summits for everyone involved in California agritourism. The Summits will be occasions for farmers, ranchers, county planners, the tourism community and others involved to share, learn, and plan together.
Regional Agritourism Summits 2017
Each summit was planned by a local team to best reflect the needs of the region, so each will be unique. Each summit will be a participatory, all-day session with lunch provided.
Participants are invited to bring marketing and organizational information to display and share.
To register and learn more, please visit http://ucanr.edu/summits2017. A registration fee of $25 is requested, payable online or by check.
- Yolo/Sacramento/Solano Agritourism Summit: Monday, February 13, 2017
UC ANR Building, 2801 Second Street, Davis CA 95618
- Sonoma/Marin Agritourism Summit: Thursday, February 16, 2017
Petaluma Community Center, Lucchesi Park, 320 N. McDowell Blvd, Petaluma CA 95954
- Stanislaus/San Joaquin/Merced Agritourism Summit: Thursday, March 23, 2017
Stanislaus County Agricultural Center, 3800 Cornucopia Way, Modesto, CA 95358
- Riverside/San Bernardino/San Diego Agritourism Summit: Wed., March 29, 2017
La Sierra University, 4500 Riverwalk Pkwy, Riverside, CA 92505
UC Small Farm Program Agritourism Resources
The UC Small Farm Program has been working for more than 15 years with UC Cooperative Extension advisors and others to develop resources and connections for California agritourism operators. The UC agritourism website hosts useful factsheets and research. The online agritourism directory and events calendarhelps visitors find farms and ranches to visit. And, the monthly California Agritourism newsletter shares news and resources for the agritourism community.
Funding for this project was provided in part by the USDA Farmers' Market Promotion Program.
More Information: Penny Leff, UCCE Agritourism Coordinator, paleff@ucdavis.edu, 530-752-7779.