How Agritourism Is Creating Meaningful Connections Through Food, Farm, and Place

There is something powerful about pulling a carrot from the ground, tasting a berry where it was grown or sitting down to a meal surrounded by the fields that produced it. These experiences may feel simple, but they give travelers something increasingly valuable: a direct connection to the people, food and landscapes that make a place distinct.

That connection is at the heart of agritourism. Across farms, destinations and tourism businesses, agritourism is creating opportunities for visitors to understand where food comes from, meet the people behind it and experience a destination through the land itself.

Those ideas came through clearly in two recent episodes of the Destination on the Left podcast:

• Food Tourism Begins with People (Part 1)
• Building Culinary Tourism Through Collaboration (Part 2)

Recorded through interviews with delegates at the 2026 Taste of Place Summit in Edmonton, Alberta, the episodes brought together perspectives from farmers, chefs, destination professionals, economic development leaders and others working at the intersection of agriculture and tourism.

What Is Agritourism?

The USDA National Agricultural Library defines agritourism as “a form of commercial enterprise that links agricultural production and/or processing with tourism to attract visitors onto a farm, ranch, or other agricultural business for the purposes of entertaining or educating the visitors while generating income for the farm, ranch, or business owner.”

In practice, agritourism can be much broader and more varied than that definition might initially suggest. A visitor might pick apples, tour a farm, gather ingredients on a foraging walk, eat dinner in a field or meet the person who produced the cheese, berries, grain or meat on their plate.

Tam Anderson of Agritourism Alberta describes that intersection in very practical terms in our interview on the podcast. Agritourism can begin with something as straightforward as roadside farm sales or a you-pick operation, then expand into horseback riding, foraging, farm-to-table meals and other experiences that invite visitors more deeply into agricultural life.

Agritourism Can Take Many Forms

There is no single formula for an agritourism experience. Depending on the farm, destination and local food culture, it might include:

• U-pick farms and farm stands
• Farm tours and educational experiences
• Foraging and nature-based activities
• Farm-to-table and long-table dinners
• Farm stays
• Food and farm trails
• Workshops and hands-on agricultural experiences

Importantly, those experiences do not have to begin as elaborate tourism products. Anderson talks about starting with the simple act of digging potatoes with children or picking strawberries, then gradually adding value as farmers gain confidence welcoming visitors. A farm might eventually serve dishes using what it grows or host a long-table dinner, but the foundation remains the same: sharing the farm and its story in an authentic way.

Why Agritourism Is About More Than Visiting a Farm

The physical setting is only part of what makes agritourism compelling. What visitors are often looking for is a better understanding of how food gets from the land to their table and a chance to connect with the people responsible for that process.

Anderson sees families seeking out farm experiences because parents want their children to understand where food comes from. That might mean learning how potatoes grow, picking fruit directly from a plant or simply spending an afternoon outdoors together. She describes the appeal as “real people connecting with other real people in authentic spaces,” with the farm itself becoming part of the experience.

That desire for connection appears in other destinations as well. Bryanna Kumpula-Yung of Leduc County said visitors increasingly want to meet producers directly, see what they grow and understand how animals are raised. Ceri Chong of Tourism Richmond similarly pointed to growing visitor interest in the region’s agricultural experiences and farm businesses.

Agritourism Turns Food Into a Story of Place

Agritourism becomes especially powerful when an experience could only happen in the place where it is being offered. The crops, climate, landscape, history and people all give visitors a way to understand a destination through what grows there.

For Anderson, that means drawing from Alberta’s soil, forests and agricultural history. Experiences and menus might incorporate wild mint, sweetgrass tea, chokecherries, saskatoons or potatoes while also connecting those ingredients to family recipes, settlers, Métis traditions and the history of the land. Food becomes a way into a much larger story.

Chef and culinary consultant Jenni Lessard takes a similarly producer-centered view. Her perspective is that the ingredient and the producer are the story, while chefs and tourism professionals help interpret that story for visitors. When travelers know where an ingredient came from and who grew or produced it, the experience gains a layer of meaning that the finished dish alone cannot provide.

James Eddington of Eddington’s of Exeter and Eddington’s Farm and Chef Table Tours puts that idea into practice through seasonal menus, farm experiences and live-fire dinners. Ingredients can move almost directly from the farm to the fire, giving guests an immediate sense of season and place while making the agricultural process part of the meal itself.

Start With What Is Already Authentic

The strongest starting point is to identify what is already distinctive and find a better way to invite visitors into it.

That might be a crop strongly associated with the region, a particular growing season, Indigenous foodways, a family recipe, an artisan production method or an agricultural tradition that has shaped the community. When those elements become part of the visitor experience, agritourism can help make a destination’s food story tangible rather than simply something described in marketing.

Collaboration Helps Agritourism Grow Beyond the Farm Gate

One farm can create a memorable visitor experience. A network of farms, restaurants, accommodations, beverage producers, tourism organizations and community partners can turn those individual experiences into a reason to explore an entire region.

Several delegates at the Taste of Place Summit described their organizations playing exactly that connecting role. In Strathcona County, Eiblish Doherty sees part of her work as introducing operators who may be able to build experiences together, from farms and chefs to breweries and accommodations. In Leduc County, the Food and Farm Trail connects multiple agritourism and culinary businesses so visitors can experience them as part of a larger journey rather than searching for each independently.

The BC Ale Trail is exploring a similar model by developing a farm-based trail that connects farm breweries with cideries and other agricultural businesses offering visitor experiences. Meanwhile, the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association has used agritourism and culinary readiness programming to bring operators together and help them develop stronger visitor experiences.

The Role Tourism Organizations Can Play

Destination organizations and other tourism partners do not have to operate farms to help agritourism grow. Their value may be in connecting businesses, helping operators become visitor-ready, developing trails and itineraries, packaging complementary experiences and making agricultural businesses easier for travelers to discover.

They can also help individual experiences add up to a stronger destination story. When visitors can move from a farm to a restaurant, brewery, market, accommodation or hands-on experience while following a recognizable local food story, agritourism becomes a part of how visitors understand the place.

For over 25 years, the tourism office in Wayne County, New York, has organized a trail of stops connecting consumers with its apple producers, many on multi-generational farms, each October. Learn more about how the Wayne County Apple Tasting Tour uses gamification to encourage visitation.

The Future of Agritourism Starts With Deeper Connection

Across the Taste of Place conversations, the strongest opportunities in agritourism often came back to surprisingly simple ideas: meet the producer, understand the ingredient, get outside, learn something and experience food where it comes from. Those experiences give travelers a closer relationship with a destination while giving farms and local businesses new ways to share what they already do well.

Many of the ingredients for a strong agritourism strategy may already be present. The next step is connecting the farms, food, people and stories in ways that invite visitors to participate, turning agriculture from something they pass on the road into something that helps them understand the place they have come to experience.