Photo: Mykl Roventine, flickr.

Alabama's struggling farmers, many of whom have converted their fields into miniature golf courses and petting zoos in hopes of boosting their revenue, are pressing the state to direct highway travelers to their entertainment complexes.

The Alabama Agri-Tourism Association will meet next month with the state's Department of Transportation to craft a plan for erecting interstate signs pointing drivers to agri-attractions, a category that encompasses everything from ice cream counters and produce stands to u-pick blueberry patches and Christmas-tree farms.

"Obviously, our attractions are way off the interstate," says Auburn University tourism specialist J. Thomas Chesnutt, emphasizing the need for signs.

Chesnutt concedes that signs are a rather old-fashioned solution to the newfangled problem of rural economic development. As he says, few tourists today load their family in a station wagon and head down the road in search of impromptu fun. Most modern vacations are plotted online.
"It's a generational thing," Chesnutt explains. "My daughter [and] son, they could care less about signs. Part of what we're trying to do is work hand-in-hand with GPS."

The association's goal is to use the Internet to lure tourists to Alabama's agricultural areas, and then provide signs to help them find their way down country roads where satellite coverage is spotty. While Chesnutt says the branding effort should "help our small farms and small communities," some of the most vocal supporters of the project have been tourism officials from the state's mid- and big-sized cities.

"They know there aren't places to spend the night out in these rural areas," Chesnutt says.

Then again, if the signs are successful, Alabama might soon be dotted with farm hostels, plantation inns and agri-themed B&Bs.