2023/2024 Alpaca Owners Guide

Photo courtesy of Cotton Creek Farms

2. Attracts members of the public to visit agricultural operations. 3. Designed to increase farm income. 4. Provides recreation, entertainment, and/or educational experiences to visitors. In short, agritourism includes any activity that welcomes visitors to your farm, increases your income, and offers a positive experience to the visitor. Common examples of agritourism on alpaca farms include:  Farm tours (public and private)  Yoga (meditation or any form of physical movement)  Photography sessions  Educational days (school tours, home school groups, scout troops, etc.)  Craft events (painting, barn quilt, arm knitting, macrame, knit with the al pacas, etc.)  Food/Beverage events (farm to table meal, charcuterie event, s'mores fam ily nights, etc.)  Movies on the farm  Music on the farm (local bands)  Festival (there are endless reasons for a festival)

By Shelly Walsh S pending time on the farm is fun and that is good news for agritourism. In these post-pandemic years, more people are moving out of urban areas. And those who are committed to city living are showing a desire to spend downtime ex ploring their local communities. There is a boom in agritourism causing an increase in farm revenue for alpaca farmers who open their doors to these explorers.  What is agritourism anyway? Agritourism is defined by the National Ag Law Center as a form of commercial enterprise that links agricultural production and/or processing with tourism in order to attract visitors onto a farm, ranch, or other agricultural business for the purposes of entertaining and/or educating the visitors and generating income for the farm, ranch, or business owner. They go on to describe the four main elements of agritourism as: 1. Combines the essential elements of the tourism and agriculture indus tries.

 Camping (tent or RV)  Airbnb  Holiday Open Houses (Mother's Day, Christmas, Pictures with Santa, Fa ther's Day Outing, etc.) The ideas for opening your farm are limitless and only confined by your imag ination and desire to have visitors.  Why Add Agritourism? Agritourism adds consistent, controllable income to your farm business. While animal sales and stud fees may feel less predictable for the majority of alpaca farms, adding agritourism gives you a controllable means to generate income consistently throughout the year. You get to set the dates, the times, and the type and frequency of activities. It will look different for every farm and that is the beauty of it. You pick the model that works for your farm.  Let’s Do the Math Here are some basic, low expectation numbers to get you thinking. You can adjust prices to fit your local area.

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