Small farm program the source for NY Times story

New York Times reporter William Neuman attended the UC small farm program's final "Growing Agritourism" workshop in Salinas last month and connected with a number of California farmers who were featured in a story published yesterday. The article noted that the "university extension service" brought the farmers, agricultural and tourism professionals, local officials and community leaders together to talk about improving agritourism opportunities in the Central Coast region.

The workshop was one of five held this year by the UC small farm program and UC Cooperative Extension. Funding to support the workshops came from Western Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education.

The California agritourism enterprises featured in the story were:

• Dairy farmers Jim and Christine Maguire, who operate two bed-and-breakfast units at their farm. "Money from the paying guests is now enough to pay for the animals’ feed, one of the farm’s biggest expenditures," the story says.
  
  
• Christine Cole, who charges for tours of Full House Farm in Sebastopol, Calif., where she and her husband keep horses, raise vegetables and chickens and maintain three farm stay units.
  
  
• Vince Gizdich who runs Gizdich Ranch in Watsonville, where visitors enjoy “Pik-Yor-Self” berries and apples.
  
  
• Bonnie Swank, of Hollister, Calif., who runs a corn maze and haunted house each fall on land that grows vegetables the rest of the year.
  
  
• Templeton farmer Kim A. Rogers and her husband, who pulled out their orchard to become full-time innkeepers. "Farming was exhausting work and the bed-and-breakfast was providing an increasing portion of their income," according to the Times.

The story mentioned a number of online resources for the public to find agritourism experiences including Farm Stay U.S., which maintains a listing of farm stays around the country, and World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, which acts as an online clearinghouse for people who want to trade labor for lodging on a farm, with stays ranging from days to months. But it didn't include the UC small farm program's own agritourism directory, CalAgTour.org, which steers visitors to the wide variety of agritourism destinations in California.