UMATILLA, Florida — On an unusually cool October morning in Central Florida, farmer Bill Baker waited for a kindergarten group to finish touring greenhouses at Sunsational Farms in Umatilla.
Today’s youngsters potted heads of lettuce, rode a tractor-towed kiddie train and picked mini-pumpkins. Sunsational is one of few Central Florida farms to grow its own pumpkins, Baker proudly states.
Across the field, the Lake County farm’s “Big Orange” landmark structure sports a seasonal jack-o-lantern grin between hay bales piled with pumpkins and the farm’s co-operated Halloween haunt, Dr. Grimley’s Haunted Trail. The haunted maze’s walls are made of stacked plastic citrus bins, Baker says.
Sunsational Farm’s fall events are one of its major sources of income and help keep it running. Baker, like other Central Florida farmers, has recognized that what’s known as agritourism could help keep his business afloat.
“It’s getting harder to stay in the citrus business, because the profitability is just not there like it used to be,” Baker said. “When my granddad was still alive, you could support a family on 40 acres of citrus. You cannot do that anymore.”
Agritourism combines two of Florida’s largest industries, agriculture and tourism, to offer visitors fun things to do on Florida’s farms. Fall is a big season for locals seeking a rustic escape.
Common agritourism attractions include u-pick groves and orchards, farm tours and goat yoga, in addition to traditional harvest-time activities such as pumpkin patches, hay rides, corn mazes and haunted trails.
Southern Hill Farms in Clermont earns nearly half of its annual income from its Fall Fest, owner David Hill said.
The business also helps farmers preserve their land from encroaching residential and commercial development and educate Floridians on where their food comes from, and the importance of agriculture, in an engaging way.
“It’s very important for kids and families to know that agriculture is the backbone that sustains a community,” Baker said. “Without it, you don’t eat.”
A growing industry
Agritourism has been officially recognized in Florida since 2013, when a law codified the practice to allow farmers to use their agricultural land for such activities without local government restrictions.
Like a crop in the field, the niche has been growing since. The Florida Agritourism Association, which helps farmers establish and promote their tourism businesses, has seen an uptick in members over the past five years or so, Executive Director Lena Juarez said. It currently has over 300 members.
“It’s farms that want to diversify: maybe they had a bad crop one year and it’s an economic opportunity for them to bridge that gap in revenue, or they just really enjoy the opportunity for the public to come on their farm and see what’s happening,” Juarez said.
The early months of the COVID-19 pandemic gave farmers a boost because major theme parks and other typical attractions were closed, and people were looking for outdoor activities. Many farms have seen higher visitor numbers since.
“If you’re in the business of offering people wide open spaces or fresh air, they want it and they benefit from it,” said John Arnold, owner of Showcase of Citrus in Clermont.
Data on agritourism’s contributions to Central Florida and the state is limited. The Florida Agritourism Association does not currently track the amount of visitors or revenue the practice brings to the state, Juarez said.
The University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences does not maintain specific agritourism data, either.
Citing federal statistics, the Florida Department of Agriculture said Florida’s income from agritourism activities increased from $11 million in 2007 to $27 million in 2017. Over that same time, the number of Florida farms offering agritourism activities rocketed from 281 to 761.
Visit Florida spokeswoman Leslie Pearsall pointed to data compiled by travel research firm TravelTrak America that found 1.1% of Florida’s out-of-state visitors in 2021 engaged in an agritourism activity. The data does not show where they visited or how they spent their money, she said.
The pumpkins at many local farms’ fall festivals may be imported from northern states, but farmers say the fun is homegrown.
Anecdotally, Central Florida’s farmers say they mostly see local residents visiting, and tourist volume varies seasonally with available crops and farm events. Fall and spring are the busiest seasons.
Baker said about 150 people visit Sunsational Farms daily, but fall festivals can draw in “a couple thousand” visitors. Admission is free for the fests, which include markets selling the farm’s produce and goods from local vendors. Haunted trail admission is $18.
Southern Hill Farms’ Fall Festival runs for almost half of the farm’s six-month operating season and typically brings around 75,000 to 80,000 people from September through November, Hill said. Tickets, which can sell out days in advance, are $15.
For some farmers, this year’s harvest celebrations have been disturbed by Hurricane Ian’s path through Central Florida last month.
In Clermont, Showcase of Citrus lost around 20% of its citrus crop in the hurricane. Arnold said the farm plans ahead for crop loss.
Two miles northeast, Southern Hill Farms’ peaches and sunflowers “took a beating” and its corn maze was demolished, Hill said. The farm reduced its Fall Festival admission price by $5 this year due to the damage because it was not offering visitors the full experience, he said.
Connecting people to their roots
Southern Hill Farms was formerly a commercial grove and opened to the public in 2014. During its first years of operation, Hill said visitors told him they had never seen a farm before.
“Not many people in Orlando knew that there were farms close by — and we’re only 20, 25 minutes from downtown Orlando,” he said.
He found visitors loved the farm and wanted to spend more time there. Hill said he never expected agritourism to become as big a part of farm operations as it is today, thanks to tourist demand.
“Every time we do something and there’s a lot of cars coming in, it’s kind of like ‘Field of Dreams,’ that scene at the end,” Hill said, referencing the 1989 baseball film. “That’s exactly what I feel like every time I see it.”
During the recent field trip to Sunsational Farms, parents and teachers of kindergarteners at Mount Dora Christian Academy chaperoned the kids through their activities.
“It’s just nice for them to learn where their food is coming from, because at this age they really have no idea besides going to the grocery store,” Mount Dora resident Melanie Lovett said as her daughter, Victoria, ran to ride the tractor-pulled train.
Apopka resident Tanisha Cline said the smile on her son Caiden’s face showed he loved his first time on a farm, even as she questioned if the lettuce sprout he potted would survive at their home.
“We thought we were just coming to a pumpkin patch,” she said. “We didn’t realize it was going to be a great lesson.”
