Farm Tourism (also known as Agritourism!) 100 Hours Certificate Course

HOW TO ESTABLISH A FARM TOURISM BUSINESS

Looking to add extra revenue streams to your farming business?

This course will explain the various opportunities and different ways that a farm tourism business can add to your farm income. You’ll learn how to build a tourism business, whether it is a wine or food tasting, farm store, farm stay bed and breakfast, guided tour of the farm, pick your own fruit, cooking class, gardening class and many more opportunities. These are listed in the lesson materials.

Farm Tourism, also referred to as agritourism is a fast-expanding industry.

Farms and primary producers can both benefit from the huge demands for this type of activity. The revenue streams can amount to a very good return on your investment.

Whatever you produce, there are always members of the public keen to see how such produce is made. Visiting your farm or produce factory is a great experience for your customers, whether you produce or grow wine, dairy, fruit or vegetables etc.,

Seeing first-hand how you produce your product is further enhanced when they can experience, learn and taste the product fresh from your establishment. Agritourism is an expanding industry where customers can experience how things are grown, and created on a farm.

How this Course Can Help You Get Started:

You’ll learn how to:

• Increase your farms or produce factory income by creating a new stream of profits
• Discover different sustainable visitor trade associated alternatives
• and more!

There are 8 lessons:

The Scope and Nature of Rural and Agricultural Tourism

• Background and History of Farm Tourism
• Forms of Agribusiness for Managers and Farmers
• and more!

2.  Creating an Agritourism Setting

• Planning Your Offering
• Resource Management
• and more!

3.  Managing an Agritourism Business

• Managing the Physical Resources
• Managing People
• and more!

4. Agricultural Tourism Accommodation

• Styles of Accommodation
• Costing Accommodation
• and more!

5. Designing and Conducting Tours and Activities

• Creating and Delivering Activities
• Creating Activities Outside the Farm – Mobile & Online

6. Agritourism Events

• Types of Agricultural Events
• Planning for an Agricultural Event
• and more!

7. Marketing and Promoting an Agritourism Business

• Introduction to Customer Relationships
• Customer Care Policy
• and more!

8. Special Project – PBL – Design a Farm Tour Activity Problem-Based Learning Project

• Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school’s tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.

2 Negatives and 1 Positive Impact of Agriculture on Global Warming

Agriculture is a major part of what separates human society from its prehistoric past and has become a major influence on our daily lives. It’s important that we evaluate existing structures in order to recognise their weaknesses so we can gain insight into potential solutions. In the case of agriculture we need to look at its impact on global warming through transport and methane emissions.

Silent But Deadly

While it might be humorous to consider, cows and other livestock do significantly contribute to global warming through their emissions (that is farts). Methane is a gas which contributes to global warming through the greenhouse effect. As most of us are aware, the greenhouse effect is what happens when insulating gasses are trapped in the earth’s atmosphere. Gasses like methane will allow light to enter the planet, warming it up, but will prevent the heat from escaping and cause it to heat up. Because we have bred cows to be large, they eat more and are generally larger which means that they will be producing more methane than their earlier counterparts, making them a further detriment to our ecological survival.

Airmiles

In bygone days, everyone in a town/village had to be involved in producing food to live. This is no longer the case. Modern agriculture has advanced to the point that only 26% of the world population now works in agriculture. And this is why we now have computers, airplanes and medicine, etc. As a result, with modern food production becoming ever more efficient due to technological advances, it is natural to see a centralisation in where food is produced and then stored before being distributed globally, in many cases. Agriculture, as it is now, is leading to an increase in our foods’ air miles as produce needs to travel from the areas which have specialised in producing that kind of produce to other areas which have specialised in producing other goods/services. Agriculture contributes to global warming by causing an increased amount of transportation to be done which burns more fossil fuels and supplies the greenhouse effect.

Agricultural Land vs Heat Islands

Agriculture, like most human endeavors, has had a negative impact on global warming. But the news is not all bad! As most people who have visited or live in large cities can testify, it is much hotter there. This effect has come to be known as ‘Urban Heat Islands’ . This theory looks at the surface temperature of the land and has made a definite correlation between rising surface temperatures and the increase of urban areas. In-fact, deforestation also contributes to these rising surface temperatures. However, land deforested for agricultural purposes are the only areas which don’t see net increases in surface temperature. This is good, as currently 70% of land in the UK is devoted to agriculture, a trend which continues worldwide.

Four Working Animals We Love

Working animals have played a hugely important role in human society for millennia. Animals such as donkeys, oxen, camels and horses still provide substance from their work for around 600 million people in the world today! Even in industrialised countries where machinery covers labour heavy functions, service animals are still extensively used. From police dogs that sniff out drugs to monkeys that aid people with disabilities, we rely on our working animals for a number of tasks.

Working Dogs

Our important and unique bond with dogs has meant that dogs have fulfilled many roles for humans throughout millennia. From herding dogs in farming to dogs that sniff out cadavers in the aftermath of a disaster, dogs are versatile enough to train into many different roles.

Working Monkeys

In some countries, monkeys are used to gather coconuts from high up in tree branches. Though controversial, monkeys have been trained to gather coconuts for centuries in Asian countries. Monkeys are also trained to help people with disabilities lead more independent lives.

Horses, Donkeys and Camels

Horses, donkeys and camels have been used by people to help on farms, travel terrain and transport goods for many centuries. Those 600 million people mentioned above rely mostly on these animals for their livelihoods. There are several charities dedicated to helping working animals in countries where lack of education, poor animal handling and sheer abject poverty can make animals’ lives difficult.

Homing Pigeons

Though technically not within the working animal definitions which states that a working animal is one that is trained to perform a task it would not otherwise do naturally, such as a cat can’t be trained to catch mice, it just does out of its instinctive behaviour, homing pigeons as messenger birds have been used for centuries. In remote places where communications were difficult, messenger pigeons relayed important information regarding disasters, and big news etc. Now, there is one final post for messenger pigeons used in a Northern State in India. The messenger pigeons are used by the police force for ceremonial purposes only now, but before, they used to pass messages all over the remote, mountainous region with great efficiency. Back in 2009, a company in South Africa used a homing pigeon to carry a USB stick with 4GB of memory and sent a transfer of the same amount of data via Telkom, South Africa’s biggest internet provider at the time, to the same location. The homing pigeon beat the internet service provider by quite a margin!