Abstract
Owners of small- and medium-sized farms are increasingly interested in engaging in agritourism and direct sales in order to increase income, provide family employment, and educate the public about agriculture, among other reasons. Prior research on agritourism operator motivations largely focuses on economic goals and benefits, while acknowledging the strong influence of non-economic factors. However, more research is needed to better understand the nuances and breadth of non-economic motivations underlying agritourism operator decisions. In addition, research on U.S. agritourism tends to be at the state level, which raises questions about overall national trends and inter-study comparability. To address these gaps, we analyzed transcripts from semistructured interviews with small- and medium-sized farm owners engaged in agritourism from five states across the U.S. We examined the results through the theoretical lens of Allport’s “contact hypothesis” in order to further understand how agritourism helps operators meet stated goals. Our results suggest that consistent with previous literature, nonmonetary motivations are high priorities for farmers engaged in agritourism. In particular, motivations related to community engagement/leadership and quality-of-life emerged as forceful and reoccurring themes. We found that although Allport’s contact hypothesis holds some important explanatory power for understanding agritourism operators’ community-related goals—including reducing prejudice and increasing understanding between farmers and consumers in relation to agriculture—increased inter-group contact also has potential to create new conflicts between farmers and neighbors related to tourism. These findings have important implications for future research as well as for policies and programs aimed at supporting agritourism.
Highlights
Key FindingsThemes constituting women’s self-definition of success: being constantly on the move, ensuring customer satisfaction, having family support, creating broad impact, gaining recognition and respect, securing financial sustainability, pursuing happiness, debating work-life balance, and perpetuating the family farm
Introduction and Literature ReviewAs small- and medium-sized farms worldwide struggle to remain viable, many farmers look for alternative revenue sources to sustain their enterprises and support their communities
As expected, based on previous literature, financial goals were a forceful and recurring theme. They were closely intertwined with two other types of goals: community-related goals and personal/family goals. These themes were fairly consistent throughout different parts of the country and different types of agritourism operations. (Because of the study design, emergent themes are not necessarily representative but are meant to help inform further study at the national level.) That results echo previous studies suggests that, in the area of motivations and goals, location is not a strong influence
Summary
Themes constituting women’s self-definition of success: being constantly on the move, ensuring customer satisfaction, having family support, creating broad impact, gaining recognition and respect, securing financial sustainability, pursuing happiness, debating work-life balance, and perpetuating the family farm. The U.S project collaborators collected information about the sample subjects from five states: Vermont, Minnesota, California, West Virginia, and Oregon These states were chosen due to the growing or ongoing interest in agritourism and direct sales by farmers in those states, and based on the expertise of the key informants working in agricultural extension and tourism. One study that compared diversified farms to agritourism farms reported that diversified farms, in general, had more women principal operators compared to all U.S farms—33% versus 11% (Barbieri, 2009) This was reported before the most recent changes to the agricultural census determining how women are counted as decisionmakers on farms and ranches, and most likely underrepresents the number of women farmers in the U.S (USDA NASS, 2019). The answers to this question served to illuminate participant motivations and goals for agritourism
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