In communities across Kentucky, farms, orchards and barns have opened to the public for hayrides, pumpkin and apple picking and autumn-themed treats.
These businesses are a part of Kentucky's booming agritainment and agritourism industry. The U.S. Department of Agriculture found in 2022, the industry generated about $1.2 billion nationwide and brought in more than $14 million in Kentucky.
There’s an agritourism site in almost every corner of the commonwealth, and the farms are drawing crowds by offering ice creameries, flower picking, activities for children and seasonal content ripe for the social media age.
Megan Fields, farm manager at Eckert’s in Versailles, said the site welcomes 40,000 visitors from September to October, when the business has apples and pumpkins ready for harvest.
“That's probably our busiest time, is once we open pick your own pumpkins and the weather breaks,” Fields said.
The Versailles farm is part of a wider family of Eckert’s that stretches into Illinois. Where production used to be the core of such farms, the introduction of on-site agricultural activities offers another means of revenue.
“Agritainment really became popular in the late 90s,” Fields said. “It started to grow in (the) early 2000s, and the reason that agritainment kind of came along was people didn't know what to do with their family tobacco farms after the government buyout.”
That buyout is the Tobacco Transition Payment Program, the product of major reforms to the tobacco industry passed in 2004.
The value of apples grown in Kentucky isn’t tracked by the USDA, but the 2022 Census of Agriculture shows 683 farms are in the business. The University of Kentucky Center for Crop Diversification’s research indicates an acre of gourds brings in about $2,000 on average, that’s more than double the average for crops like corn.
Wesley Logsdon’s Bear Wallow Farms in Nancy has thousands of visitors each year and strives to be the “premier pumpkin patch,” advertising heavily on social media.
“Kids these days don't have the opportunity to just get out and run and get dirty and muddy and have a big time and just be kids,” Logsdon said. “I think that's what kind of what fuels our passion behind what we do is we enjoy seeing families get to come out and spend time. Not on a cell phone, not on a device but just mom and dad walking around together and watching the kids play and have, what I would call, good old just wholesome fun.”
Logsdon and his wife took over Bear Wallow a decade ago, but the farm has been open to the public since the 90s.
Similarly, Fields said Eckert’s has been open as an orchard since the 1970s, but it’s had a few names over the years, and the farm’s agritourism has grown as its tobacco production dropped off.
Now, Fields’ season on the Versailles farm runs from May to October to accommodate spring and summer strawberries, followed by a gourd-rich fall.
“We're able to cram enough business in six months because all of that is harvest time for us, and then the winter, we end up spending the winter doing a lot of planning,” Fields said. “That kind of gives us the downtime to be able to plan new events and and plan what we're going to build next, and then we spend time on the farm pruning and getting the plants and trees in shape for the next season.”
While the fields may be the heart of the operations, the industry chugs along with other forms of commerce, with farms outfitting sites with playgrounds, country stores and markets, on-site food and more.
This is true at Bear Wallow, which advertises delectable desserts and activities alongside its autumn patches. In the spring, it offers a tulip festival.
Those businesses go hand-in-hand with Logsdon’s year-round farming, he told WEKU. Along with consumer-ready produce like pumpkins, he also grows corn, soybeans and wheat crops, as well as raises cattle.
“Then here comes September, and that's when we get to turn the kids loose and turn the public loose to see what we've worked all year to think and create,” Logsdon said. “It's kind of like harvest at the pumpkin patch on the weekends too, because you get to see the enjoyment and the fulfillment from a year's worth of work and prep to see what people enjoy and what people like.”
Bear Wallow has built more than 40 attractions, including a tricycle track, dozens of photo opportunities and apple cannons, which he described as “more of a fall festival setup.”
“I feel like we're more of just a place to go and unwind instead of being a place that you're going to go home and necessarily take a bag of fruit with you,” Logsdon said.
The success of such ventures hasn’t gone unnoticed.
“It's an extremely important part of what our farming operations look like in the state of Kentucky,” state Agriculture Commissioner Jonathon Shell said. “Some do participate in these agritourism opportunities, some don't. But those that do find a lot of value in being able to give not just an entertainment portion, but an educational portion of this for the farm, as well.”
He’s hoping to get a special designation within the state tourism tax credit for agritourism operations. Under current regulations, businesses can access a the credit at a million dollars invested.
“We want to lower that down for agriculture and agritourism to $250,000, so that more of our farmers in the state of Kentucky can have that opportunity to participate in agritourism and kind of incentivize that to be so,” Shell said.
Farmers could reach that threshold building out their sites with things like restrooms or market buildings.
But for some farmers, like Fields, the attraction is in the pastoral spaces that already exist.
“We're kind of one of those staples in the community that kind of sells itself,” the Eckert’s manager said. “It's nostalgic. People have made memories here.”
