In simple dollar terms, Italy’s most valuable contribution to South Carolina’s tourism industry is in the Lowcountry, where Charleston’s famed Spoleto Festival USA annually delivers about 65,000 arts-loving visitors and more than $40 million in economic activity. The Charleston festival grew from a similar event that started years earlier in Spoleto, Italy.
But experts say there’s a humbler Italian-born tourism tradition that’s quietly exploding in communities from the Lowcountry to the Upstate — agritourismo, or farm tourism. And while it got a much later start here than its Italian counterpart, which took off in the 1980s, officials say S.C. agritourism is already generating about $15 million a year to support farmers and rural communities across the Palmetto State.
“Agritourism is really taking the ag world by storm,” Clemson University’s Will Culler told Statehouse Report in an interview this week. “The tradition and culture around farming in South Carolina interests so many people — they want to see it and experience it for themselves.”
The breadth and diversity of those experiences were on display just last month, Culler noted, when Clemson’s annual Ag + Art Tour welcomed 30,000 visitors to farms in 22 S.C. counties, with attractions ranging from corn mazes to hiking trails to petting zoos and more.
“This year, we had 186 farms participating,” Culler said, noting that it represented about a third of the total agritourism farms in the state. “According to the Agriculture Department website, there are over 600 farms doing some form of agritourism in South Carolina, which is truly amazing.”
A growing industry with strong state support
With Palmetto State agritourism revenues rising more than 300% since 2012, industry observers credit state officials for taking a number of early steps to foster and promote the once-rare practice.
On the legislative side, they point to two laws that cleared the way for farmers to begin opening their land up to visitors. First, in 2007, legislators updated the state’s tax assessment law to ensure farmers weren’t hit with higher local property tax rates if they began offering agritourism attractions. And second, in 2010, they passed a bill offering farmers liability protection as long as they posted signs warning visitors of the risks inherent in most farm-related activities.
S.C. Sen. Russell Ott, an Orangeburg Democrat who manages his family’s farm in rural Orangeburg County, told Statehouse Report he thinks the legislature has generally done “a good job” in supporting agritourism initiatives.
“Here in South Carolina, we’ve tried to give farmers who want to try agritourism a break,” he said in a July 14 interview. “Because a lot of times, that’s the difference between them staying in business and going out of business.”
And while he doesn’t practice agritourism himself, he says it can be an important driver of rural economic development.
“It’s got spinoff benefits for the whole community,” he said. “When we can attract people to come in and spend their money, it helps everybody.”
In addition to the state’s legislative efforts, the S.C. Department of Agriculture has maintained an active agritourism program since 2014, department spokesperson Eva Moore said this week.
Specifically, Moore pointed to initiatives like the department’s Agritourism Passport Program, which allows visitors to redeem stamps from more than 100 participating farms for official state merchandise, including hats and T-shirts. Other initiatives include a website promoting every farm that currently offers agritourism products and services, and ongoing state support for the S.C. Agritourism Association.
But perhaps even more important, Moore said, is the “backend support” the department offers to farmers as they face the very real challenges of developing a workable agritourism plan.
“What do you need to know to invite people to your farm?” Moore said, outlining the kinds of questions the department helps farmers answer. “What are the legal considerations? What are the marketing considerations? How do you keep people safe? That’s the kind of support we offer.”
Down on the farm
Lee Newton of Newton Blueberry Farm said his family has been offering “you pick ‘em or we pick ‘em” agritourism services in Hollywood since 1968, long before the term was coined.
“We have a big following of you-pickers that come get their blueberries every year,” Newton said. “And we host a festival once a year when we have a good crop.”
To give a sense of scale, he noted about 1,200 people attended this year’s festival in late June.
“We had 25 sets of vendors selling all sorts of various wares,” Newton said. “Everybody came out and visited, picked berries and went to the food trucks and so forth, so it was a great day.”
Another S.C. grower, Casey Price of Jeremiah Farm and Goat Dairy on Johns Island, said she and her husband Tim got into the agritourism business almost by accident, when friends and neighbors insisted on paying them for farm tours they conducted anytime people asked.
“And here we are 20 years later, still doing it,” Price said, noting that the farm’s agritourism activities have expanded over the years to include goat milk products, educational seminars, farm to table meals and more.
But Price made it clear that the ancillary farm income, while helpful, wasn’t the driving force behind the growth of her family’s agritourism activities.
“It’s our heart to connect people with the rural lifestyle,” she said. “All the things we just grew up knowing – how to grow food, how to make soap, how to make cheese. Because if we don’t share it, it’s lost.”
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(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
