Arizona Farmers Use Agritourism to Compete
Some Arizona farmers are turning their farms into tourist destinations, according to this story on Yahoo! News. The altruistic goal is to help people understand where their food comes from. The financial goal, of course, is to make more money to compete with large farms.
If you’ve read George Pyle’s Raising Less Corn, More Hell you know that the deck is stacked against small farmers. The handful of corporations that buy the majority of America’s harvest demand prices below production cost, but government subsidies favor the monster farms more.
Small farmers thus struggle to stay afloat, and agritourism offers a way for them to earn extra income.
Pyle’s fans will be amused to see the other article on the page, which describes the American government’s marketing effort to sell its produce overseas. The country has a huge surplus that it constantly tries to sell abroad. It’s always a challenge, given the surpluses in other countries, but even more so in this day and age, when the U.S.’s GM-heavy products are turned down by former customers. Still, a promotional effort is better than the trade embargoes the government typically use to force purchases.
