"agri-tourism" news and stories

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.