Culinary Lens on Agritourism

the top of the hour on my uh my watch anyway so we're going to get started because we have a really exciting webinar and i want to make sure that our moderator and our panelists has as much time have as much time as possible we're going to start the recording now and my name is lisa chase i'm a professor at university of vermont extension and i'm also the director of the vermont tourism research center today we are discussing a culinary lens on agritourism this virtual gathering is the eighth in a series leading up to the international workshop on agritourism which will take place in burlington vermont in person we hope in august of 2022 as many of as many of you realize we had originally planned for this conference in person in october of 2020 we've postponed it a couple of times and in the meantime we've been meeting virtually through these monthly gatherings and now that we have a whole another year on before we can get together in person we're looking into other creative ways to strengthen the agritourism network and we are open to new ideas for connecting new topics and new speakers so if you have ideas feel free to reach out to me directly i want to mention that a major sponsor for the in-person conference and also these virtual gatherings is yonder a new booking site that promotes farm stays and other nature-rich experiences founded and advised by farmers yonder highlights stewards that have a connection to their local community practice environmental responsibility and exhibit hospitality that's reflective of this commitment through the yonder site and app guests can discover and book overnight stays and activities at farms in the u.s and now in europe yonder has been expanding around the world country by country and they have been a very important partner for the international agritourism network that was launched initially at the first world congress on agritourism which took place in bolzano italy in 2018 and was organized by urac research since then we've been planning for this in-person conference to take place in burlington vermont in august of 2022 and of course in the meantime while we travel freely around the globe we're continuing to build this network through virtual gatherings like this one and we're going to get into our topic of culinary tourism in just a moment but first i want to get a sense of who is here with us so i am going to launch a poll you should see on your screen a question that says describe yourself check all that apply please take a moment to check as many boxes as fit what you do as many all the many hats that you may wear and also if you wouldn't mind go to the chat box and tell us a little bit more about yourself and you'll notice when you go to the chat box you can i think the default is panelist only i haven't figured out how to change that so if you're willing to share with everyone select panelists and attendees and type in there who you are where you're from what you what you do for work or what you do for fun and how that relates to culinary tourism and agritourism i wish that we were all together sitting in a room i mean you could look around and see all the different faces and know what a tremendous diversity we have here i have the privilege of being able to look at the registration list so i saw that we had about 300 let's see last i checked a few hours ago we had about 370 people registered from over 30 different countries and it looks like we've got around 150 people with us now and so i realized there's so many people from so many countries who are doing such interesting work and i want to give you a moment share that in the chat i'm going to end the polling and share the results and interesting you know it's been interesting with these webinars to see what the different mix is it looks like this one and this may be one of the first ones where um the highest percent over 30 percent is tourism professionals we do have a a good mix of 22 farmers ranchers producers um over 20 percent extension service providers lots of non-profit government agency educators as well and business owners so great mix here and i really appreciate all of you joining us today i am now going to stop sharing my screen and what i'd like to do is introduce today's moderator catherine malonsi is a consultant who advises hospitality travel and tourism ventures on strategy sustainability and business development with a background in gastronomy and regenerative agriculture and inspired by many years spent her area of expertise is agritourism she designs and facilitates cultural and leadership experiences around food and nature catherine is currently based in the hudson valley of upstate new york and she has been a key partner in coordinating this agritourism bathroom series and especially today catherine welcome thank you so much for joining us thank you lisa and welcome everyone uh it's so encouraging to see the continued great turnout for these gatherings which we created to connect people who love food and travel and farming and i have the honor today to host this wonderful group of subject matter experts who i am sure will delight us with their knowledge and inspire us with their perspectives about one of my favorite professional and personal topics and one that connects us all which is food and as everyone on this call knows food plays a large role in travel culinary tourism also known as gastronomic or food tourism is where travelers um put local food and beverages as the main motivating factors for their for their trip you know polls tell us that food ranks alongside uh weather accommodation and scenery in importance to tourists and i think that that is only increasing year after year so culinary travelers again as you know are ones that search out memorable eating and drinking experiences that they often can't find at home this really encompasses a wide range of activities such as cooking schools which feature local cuisine cooking workshops tours of farms uh who are producing special uh special products uh specialty food processing facilities um these are all becoming regular vacation destinations for uh for tourists and as as is having seeking out meals featuring local food specialties in every place we go of course we can find richness and variety of of that particular place's gastronomy and there's really nowhere better in my opinion or at least my experience to have food and beverage memories made on the farm where those foods are produced and i bet that many of you agree since you're listening to this today so i'd like to learn through a little poll another poll learn more about your experiences so lisa if you'll launch that for us so i'm curious are you a host of an on-farm or farm-related culinary experience have you ever been a guest if you're not a host if you've eaten you probably have been a guest do you seek out local cuisine only when you travel and do you seek out local cuisine in your region when you're at home so these are quick yes or no questions just to get a little temperature of our now over 150 people on the call again welcome to you all so many of you are not hosts but many of you are guests and have been a guest on a culinary experience so i'm curious if those of you who are not hosts are on this call to learn about becoming hosts or get inspiring ideas from our panelists today 98 of you seek out local cuisine when you're traveling and i'm delighted to see that you also seek out local cuisine in your region so we have many members of the local food movement as it were here with us today that's great to hear uh what we're looking at today is how culinary tourism impacts the way that we understand and interact with our food system by emphasizing how unique foods and dishes really form the culture of a specific region and one idea that we're weaving into our panel today is how culinary tourism strength strengthens the cultural identity of different territories different regions so how does a region become defined by the foods that are grown and eaten there like tuscany for its beef kia nina beef or wine or like vermont where lisa is for its cheese in maple syrup and why are these important and how can we market this taste of place and make sure that these products and people are celebrated and protected and moreover how can we do that in a way that honors the ecology of the place and creates economic and community development opportunities so what is exciting for me today is that all of our panelists although they represent different components of culinary tourism they all offer examples of what i believe are the values associated with the new trends emerging uh in tourism especially in the era of coven i won't quite say poscovid yet um and and these values that are coming to the foreground that i see and am encouraged by are respect for culture and tradition authenticity and social and environmental sustainability and so with that i want to turn it to our first panelist alex retana and alex was born in costa rica he's a self-described agriculturalist and dreamer whose hobbies are reading and collecting plants and alex's family has worked in farming for generations he currently runs finka kobu a farm a farm stay and agro ecotourism educational center his dad was a great farmer and inspired by him alex studied zoo technics and his dream is to create a sustainable production farm in the tropics that involves three components wildlife agricultural production and human beings organic cacao protection is the main economic crop of finka kobu and they lead guests on tours through the cocao plantation and then demonstrate the various steps that go into making good chocolate i'd think a kobu they believe that production is closely linked to conservation and as a farmer alex believes we have to establish places and structures within our farms that leave some space to nature so therefore they are working on creating various uh agricultural ecosystems on the property which i'm sure alex will tell us more about the cacao crop occupies the major part of their property but they also cultivate more than six species of bananas star fruit pineapple maracuya coffee other tubers papaya citrus fruit many more totaling more than 30 species of fruit and vegetables so alex is going to kick us off in our discussion of the intersection of culinary tourism and agricor agritourism today welcome alex hello everybody um i am very excited for this opportunity um when the i hear um you introduce me uh for me it's funny because this is not my profession i know study my professional reality is the uh techniques yeah i studied for to produce bulls and animals you know but in some moment in my life for some reasons um i had the opportunity for the property because my father is a farmer but my father is a traditional farmer they producing monoculture they use agrochemicals they use and also the the hybrid e in some moment in my life i thought this is not maybe the best way for to produce for me it was a big discussion with my father because i like to do different but my father is sometimes not affected very easily in some moment my father gave me some place of the property i start for to make a different agriculture in some moment it starts for to arrive at visitors great yeah my problem was the english because my english is not the best is some friend of mine alex don't worry speaking show you work in this firm in reality i start for to to work in turismo but for me i start for to do like aggro eco turismo why because i like to eat i like the fruits i like the i enjoy related to it you know the tropical lands the tropical ecosystem is extremely productive ecosystem because the weather is practically the same we have rain or summer but no these are four seasons it's extremely productive unfortunately we use now in the majority of the lands and in the tropical lands tropical country sorry a very aggressive ecosystem you know when the people produce rice when the people produce coffee or bananas or pineapples for example it's a big monoculture there's a lot of aerochemics you know the history about you know what happened for me was surprised because for me was very clear this situation is not really nice but in one moment i discovered that the people don't have any idea where come from the food bananas yeah in supermarket bananas everywhere around the world or pineapples um fresh pineapples i started i remember for speaking with the people okay this is the pineapple is 90 from south america for example the production this way and also is speaking about um when this produce is an organic way for example when this is many agrochemicals it for me today is very important because i think so when the people understand aha the production is more sustainable for example where come from the food the meat for example the eggs the people have more information when they make elections in the supermarket or in different countries it's possible they make a big impact in the planet you know because unfortunately people today like a lot cheap but this is not possible for example just imagine just imagine one pineapple in central europe is around two three euros one pineapple in costa rica is just 20 cents you know for the farmers for example but the steel is good business what happen is when they reproduce in organic way the pineapple need around two years this is the the time two years in organic way but now with many agrochemicals hormones and also pesticides it's just six or seven months for example sure the pineapple is very cheap in europe and u.s and different countries you know i think so um it's a great opportunity when the people traveling around the world because the people need to eat this is every day we need breakfast lunch and dinner you know it's great when you see for example uh the farmers when you visit the farmers for example when you see what is the fruit for example i live in costa rica all my life okay the first time in europe i was in the in the in the tour for apple plantation i was extremely excited because was one of my big dreams to walk in the apple on the pier for example i remember just i saw the trees i saw the the fruits but i don't try in the moment i like really to the jumping industry you know and to start for eat apples for me was very clear the next time when i am in costa rica yeah working with tourists with people sorry i will show everything for to try because the experience is completely different you know yes it's today for example my my my way for to do the tour is because um the people when they walk in the in the production and in the farm for example if we are in front the sugarcane the people try the sugarcane immediately or when you are in front of the mandarin so the or the star fruit for example you need to try the starfruit director in the tree the experience is totally different totally different um for example bananas is so funny people just know one or two special bananas but bananas is around 120 different species 20 grow in costa rica very well yeah very very very very very well and very different as you know it's very good is it's amazing but in my case i speak more about the cacao because cacao is the main activity in our property it's really funny because cacao chocolate everybody know i can imagine 100 of the people here today know when the you think about the chocolate the smell and the color you know it's this is this is normal for everybody but the people sometimes don't have any idea any idea about the process for example the pro the fruit is very very funny i have some some pictures lisa maybe maybe you have the pictures because i like to show you some pictures for the for the for or or fruit or tours um for example in costa rica is very important but aggro ecotourism is now more and more important because many people produce in costa rica different fruits for example this is a group they they work in the in the farm we have specific trails and now for example this group starts for to introduce in the cacao plantation this risk around here is cacao for example maybe another another picture for example this group this girl have a star fruit this is the star fruit for example and the other group have noni noni is a medicinal plant it's family for coffee the smell is horrible but it's very very well for cholesterol or many different diseases for example it's very popular but this is very different um contrast a star fruit is sweet it's very juicy for example this is medicinal family for coffee but the smell is horrible for example this is very funny you know very funny because of totally different families the origin isn't also for different continents but they find costa rica in one property and this is really really funny um the people for example have this experience very very interesting yeah the next the next uh picture maybe is cacao for example this is cacao yes this is very very funny because when the people can sit for the first time the majority expecting the fruit is brown the smell is like chocolate you know the color is uh like like chocolate but it's totally different the cacao is amazing because uh when the cocoa fruit is ripe the color is yellow or in this case red for example um and we need to open the fruit for exa for to take the seeds out maybe the next picture i think is um yeah for example you see here normally the cacao produce constantly but in june july and costa rica is the high season for rain and also for the production we harvest all the cacao and you see the same like white seeds this is the cacao beans that this is like maybe you know rambutan or lychee for example in u.s this is the test is juicy it's purple inside is the most important the most important in cacao for example is to make fermented a fermentation process this is a box for example we put the beans for around five days practically the the embryo for the cacao die the cacao bean have many chemical processes inside it unbelievable it's like miracle because in five days when you open the seeds it's made like chocolate for example if the color is brown but the process is not ready in order to continue the process when this is ready the next step is to dry the beans for example in the next picture elisa maybe you see this is the area for to dry the beans this is a very very important because after the fermented the bean is very it's very wet it's very wet but we need around 20 percent the humidity in the tropical land sometimes is not really really easy but in summer it's okay okay when we have like 20 humidity in order to continue the process we need to roast the beans for to make cacao or export the beans normally the majority of the companies buy beans around the world costa rica export more blocks because um costa rica export blocks because the price is better and also we produce cryo priority is the best cacao it's one heirloom cacao is very aromatic and the smell is wonderful but this cacao is more um have more problem for the diseases for example lisa maybe the next picture okay well there's a picture for example you see here the yellow fruit the fruit the beans these beans is roasted we need to roast it for example as possible children ovens is around 20 minutes when the beans are ready the beans make a noise similar popcorns but the smell is wonderful you know this is the most important um you need to take out the beans for the oven and you remove the skin you grind it and you have like this powder for example you see this is the cacao powder this is 100 this is bitter um this is the the cacao sometimes the people now understand that the difference between cacao and chocolate cacao is this one 100 beans just we grind it you know this is cacao and the chocolate the combination for sugar milk and cacao this is the basic chocolate the basic chocolate for example but during the tour we're speaking about because sometimes the people ask me alex what is white chocolate you know this is really funny because the people don't have any idea the white chocolate practically is not chocolate if white chocolate is such as milk for example cocoa butter it's not really healthy chocolate you know when do you like healthy chocolate you need to buy for example 60 or 70 pure um maybe the next picture is lisa okay bueno i like the the other picture it make maybe the next picture okay remember now we're speaking about the aggro ecotourism okay in in our case for example in our experience the people the first need to walk to walk and to see where comes from the fruits the production the history for example in the process about the cacao when the people ready in the information the people arrive in a special place if the people have for example watermelon uh this is white pineapple this is uh what a male um this is banana it's called banana black banana for example this is the chocolate cake and the chocolate sauce okay is this the end of the tool for example the next picture lisa maybe yeah this is the the the group okay for me it's a very important when the tourists at the end the people take a seat as many questions for example uh between the people and also question for us but it's very very exciting for me because i can see the people the people try this cacao for example the people try the white pineapple is really funny everybody know pineapple is yellow but you need to know this is one hybrid the heirloom pineapple is white color unfortunately the people the companies produce more yellow because they produce faster or the color is more attractive for example but in my experience it's very nice it's very nice because um in costa rica ecuador is very important the majority the people is in the beach the people like to see the monkeys for example the jaguars or the toucans i am speaking about the agriculture because it's my passion the plants in reality is my passion you know i haven't also the opportunity for to do something uh in the um sustainable way because these students for example these groups are not families when they come back in the in their another countries and the people remember ah in some place in costa rica somebody explain me the pineapple is organic it's better for the environment or they say for example potatoes is organic because locally or the milk or the cheese or the wine whatever you know this is my my point um my point is with ecoturismo or agroecotrimo we can do a lot information is very important in this moment uh because when you have more information you make better election for the food yes for me um important yeah this is my my my topic about the tourists in the farm yeah thank you alex that's lovely to see and we have some questions on how people can get in touch or have more information uh with your work that i see becky is putting now into the chat so um thank you becky and i our next panelist is is tom murphy so we're going to go from the tropical forest of costa rica across the pond as they say and start to migrate into the kitchen um through tom who is a regenerative farming consultant and founder of full circle farms uh the same farm where he started his farming apprenticeship as i understand and full circle farms are truly unique farms based in west sussex and london and they produce vegetables on a small scale without the use of pesticides or herbicides full circle farms wants to help people think differently about horticulture and agriculture and the world surrounding it as well as informing people about the food that they grow and their benefits to health and well-being uh they work uh closely with chefs which tom will tell us more about and the farm provides a great opportunity for these chefs that they work with as well as other visitors to learn where ingredients and food comes from as alex was speaking to and make those connections between flavor and soil and production tom also works with an initiative a hotel i believe called birch which is on 55 acres 30 minutes outside of london and he is also the founder of the garden army a non-profit company helping people with mental health and well-being through horticultural therapy so while we'll be focusing on culinary connection today i'm sure tom will illuminate us how all of his many hats come together um welcome tom thanks for being here hey you're gonna unmute yourself if you can here i am so hello everybody i'm uh i'm tom or farmer thomas i'm known down here um i'll give you a brief kind of update about how i got started so many years ago i was involved in horticulture agriculture and hard and self-landscaping most of my life we had one very bad winter one year and i took a job working for tesco's which is a big supermarket chain over here um when i worked there as a deliveries manager i then really kind of got to see firsthand the amount of food weight that was being thrown away and i was reversing lorries up to huge skips and we were unloading all this food into skits um i didn't last very long in that job working inside a factory in a big office was not for me um so then i went to work in a city farm in central london which i set up it's there where i learned that not everyone knows about where their food comes from and they don't know anything about plants or how it's grown or the importance of decent food as well so when i left that job i came back to sussex and we started on the farm in west sussex here called little little woolsted farm and that was the first farm um we set up and that was the original farmer i started my apprenticeship on 20 something years ago now we've since moved from that farm we've set up the farm round birch hotel uh and our aim now is to educate people where their food comes from and the importance of them where their food comes from and how it benefits them we then took that on to the next stage and we started collecting food waste from restaurants we then bring that back to the farm and then we turn it into compost we put that compost onto the field and separate the field into plots we then rented those plots back to the chefs we've taken the food waste from a lot of these chefs from michelin star famous chefs and then we rented plots of land to them and we grew all of their fruit and veg for them and delivered it back to their restaurants so that's what we were doing a couple years ago and from that we've now developed our care farms so the idea was that we'd always build these farms produce amazing fruits veg meat eggs and supply restaurants and uh eventually um local veg boxes as well but once the farmers were up and running and they were built we then use these farms as care farms care farms are places where people can come if they're having suffering from stress anxiety depression or any other mental disability they can come to the farm and we can find tasks for them to do and get involved with which takes their mind off of their problems and they're focused on doing different tasks and we can then help them grow as a person to go either back to work or we can provide jobs for them and that's through the garden army so the garden army brings people in works we all work together and then from that um if they're responding well to uh horticultural therapy and they there's something that really helps them we can hopefully offer them a job within full circle farms building more farms around the southeast here this is kind of where we start where we are now um the farm where we are now in west sussex just other of my house where i've just come from um we have a brewery on site we have a what's called a tap room which is like a mini restaurant we've got glamping pods going up so now you can come to the farm you can stay at the farm you can have some amazing beer made on the farm and you can get involved on a tour of our farm and how we grow and why we grow the way we do and then you can book up to get involved and get your hands dirty as well because it's now scientifically proven if you do get your hands dirty that makes you feel better we are part of nature we tend to forget this a lot but if you get your hands dirty the microbes and things in seoul get into your body mix with your body's microbes and that makes you feel better your body releases endorphins don't mean it makes you feel happy these are the happy drugs you would normally be prescribed by your doctor if you're suffering depression and anxiety and things like that then nature does it naturally surprisingly so that's what we kind of encourage on the farm people to come get involved learn where the foods come from and from that we can hopefully educate people encourage builders to grow at home and uh and we help people set up farms as well so we were due to be in um in colombia uh in august that has now been cancelled because of the sea word which we won't mention so that's all been cancelled now but we're supposed to be going to colombia to set up a farm on a regenerative hotel site there which we will do eventually we're also going to be going to italy to help um help a couple set up a farm there and portugal and morocco as well where there's some chefs who want to help and build farms get farms set up around their restaurants so you can really get that food to fork um field to fork sorry system going which is really important to us so we do a lot of um outdoor dining events on the farm as well we've got several chefs that signed up to renting plots one is a huge market garden it's four acres and they will be doing dining experiences within the farm to you there'll be a long table amongst the crops and you'll sit there and we'll literally grab the food cook it in front of you and put it on your plate it does not get fresher than that and in that process people are often coming back to say well what's this weird liquid coming out of our salads and things but all these things that are coming out of their salad this white liquid coming out of their lettuce for example is all the amazing minerals and nutrients and things you'd normally get from your salad but majority of people never see that kind of thing because they don't get their salad until five weeks after it's been harvested once it's gone through all the transporting systems so it's just little things like that that wake people up to the importance of having food in your back garden from wherever it's going to be growing your own food so from that we've set up as um as was mentioned earlier the garden army and the garden army is our new non-profit organization it's something we used to do within full circle farms when it separates and now it's a separate company by itself and that is all about helping people using horticulture and agriculture to help them heal in that process we can then produce more farmers as well with a different mindset you don't need big tractors and lots of chemicals and things you can do it with a single man can have a maker farm quite happily and produce a lot of food we're now educating people training people giving them the confidence to do that so then make themselves feel better and they can go off and set off that set up their own farms that's what we're about uh and we've seen the trend on this um becoming more and more popular since the first lock down over here we're now in our i don't know three third fifth lockdown um from the first time we went into lockdown my phone and email went mad everyone wanted to know how to grow their veg at home so this certainly became more and more popular and now people are you can't buy compost you can't get hold of seeds everyone has brought all over all of this stuff so which is great um so there is a massive trend coming our way people really want to know where their food's from they're shopping more locally now and i hope this carries on i hope this isn't just a trend because they don't want to go out for supermarkets hopefully these smaller all the farms now can really capitalize on that and we can get more people onto the farm and we can help these farmers diversify diversify to earn more money this is a part of my other job i'm a consultant and i help other farms uh look at different avenues we look at setting up different food systems on the farm we look at turning their farm from it just being a chemical kind of store for for bad farming techniques they like to change it around to a more regenerative farm help benefit those land owners sometimes these landowners are just inherited farms and they don't really know what they're doing they get joe blog's farm up the road to come and do it for them and they just spray around chemicals and they rape the land until it's worthless and then they hand it back which is no good for anybody so we we come in and we look at the some regenerative systems to save that land to regenerate it and then look at getting some tourism in there as well to help people kind of get involved and learn from that as well so that's where we are now and very busy with it sounds very busy and um please do i just as a reminder if you have specific questions for any of the panelists you can put them into the q a um [Music] any if you're interested in any details about any points they made or how they're working with chefs restaurants on farm uh culinary events uh et cetera so put the cl throw those into the q a and also uh while we're listening to jane connolly our third panelist today jane is passionate about and inspired by culinary heritage and gastronomy experiences identifying them as engines for sustainable development and the preservation of culture she spent 10 plus years traveling the globe eating and cooking with curiosity and enthusiasm of a true epicure her education in the u.s spain and mexico and her cross-cultural work experiences provide her with an inimitable perspective and unmatched insight into destination development projects initiatives and strategies she's contributed to numerous successful international food tourism initiatives such as the european young chef award and the food truck food trucks food summer food travel summits jane holds a master's degree in innovation and tourism management of culinary heritage and gastronomy from cett university of barcelona and jane is going to help us put the culinary tourism connections into a larger international contents context looking at which motivational factors are driving culinary tourists to seek out local food and beverages and i when doing a little research jane i was i noticed that a 2016 uh poll uh or survey by the world food travel association shows that 93 of travelers can now be considered food travelers if you define them as travelers who participated in a food or beverage experience other than dining out at some point so uh with that we welcome you and uh thanks for being here okay thank you for the introduction i'm really happy to be here first of all uh i'd like to acknowledge alex and tom for the amazing work that you guys are doing it's absolutely wonderful and amazing amazing the work that you're doing so i'm going to zoom out just a little bit further and talk more about culinary tourism uh more in general and how agritourism fits in to culinary two into culinary tourism so i'm going to share my screen one second okay can you see my screen yes okay great so um i'm going to touch on some similar ideas that katherine actually mentioned at the beginning of this of this panel and i'm going to keep it short because i know that we are running out of time here and i want to keep time for for questions so the idea of culinary tourism uh culinary tourism is the act of traveling for a taste of place in order to get a sense of place so these are travelers who are going out of their way to experience a local culture through food and beverage what i like to do today specifically when talking about agritourism is focus on the the culinary side of culinary tourism so i want to touch on culinary culture assets of an area so here you have examples such as local recipes cooking techniques customs heritage local ingredients traditions these are all of the local culinary assets that then tourism products and experiences can be built upon right um so when we're talking about how these culinary tourism how these culinary assets fit in to tourism we we ask ourselves you know what is the importance of cuisine to tourism oftentimes i look at it the other way around i have the tourism angle looking at cuisine but i decided to to flip it around and question really what is the importance of cuisine to tourism when we're talking about agritourism these are the local raw products how do these uh farming techniques the the products fit into the lens of tourism so lisa i have a poll ready for this the question is what makes a culinary experience memorable to you it can be the unique ingredients used the cooking techniques the story behind the dish the chef the farm the restaurant the farmer maybe alex tom the environment ambiance or something else all right so um yeah i saw tom's reaction and i'm really happy about this as well um and i think this tells a lot about the importance of just this panel and this entire workshop the answer was the story behind the dish chef farm farmer is what makes an experience a culinary experience so memorable that's great so moving on i'm going to close this memorable experiences all right so we have the culinary culture assets we know that that the storytelling is important so then we we have to add the culinary tourism element which is transforming these these products these stories into experiences um so in culinary tourism some of the most popular experiences are you know visiting a market obviously wine tasting brewing brewer tour cooking classes food tours um so the next idea is what is the culinary lens on agritourism how does agritourism fit in to these memorable experiences first of all it creates an authentic taste of place so when you're experiencing a culinary event a dinner a tasting and you're on the farm and you're with the farmer you're with the the local chef that experience is giving you an authentic taste of place that you're not going to get probably anywhere else in the world next it adds value through storytelling so when you're creating a culinary tourism experience it gives you some structure and framework to offer the story around the product so alex you know is producing this amazing fruits and vegetables but the moment he gets to the table at the end of his tour and he has everyone around trying the fruits and vegetables and the cacao he gets to tell really tell his story from from st from start to finish next it builds relationships between producers and consumers i think that alex and tom both really hit hit on this point and not only that it builds relationships but it's through these relationships you're building awareness and education um as well as it becoming something a little bit more accessible right so maybe i'm i'm us i'm a city girl i'm urban and i don't really feel myself going out to work in the farm but all of a sudden i see that there's a brewery on a farm well that's maybe something that that i'm used to right i can go that's accessible that's normal for me and so through that avenue of this culinary tourism lens of me grabbing a pint all of a sudden i find myself on a farm chatting with farmer tom and learning about the new varieties of lettuce that i didn't even know existed next is that it enables cross collaboration so when you bring in culinary experiences you're opening the table for collaboration so maybe alex he grows cacao but maybe he doesn't actually make the chocolate so perhaps he gets in touch with the local producer down the road who makes the chocolate and then they invite the local chef who's going to make a mole out of the chocolate or something similar and in one space you have brought together um main actors of the area that represent the local agriculture the local food ways and the local culture highlights local and tangible culture and heritage so a lot of times culinary tourism experiences it they don't just stop at food right you can be in an area that maybe you're surrounded by local art maybe there's local music playing i think that um when when you're looking especially at agritourism culinary experience you have such an amazing and unique stage that will tie in i think much more of your unique intangible heritage that you could imagine and it's important to to acknowledge that and bring that in because culinary visitors are looking for that it facilitates gastro diplomacy so the moment that you have a group of travelers and visitors maybe from all around the world sitting at the table trying your local products discussing the farming techniques discussing the the local dishes that they're trying they're opening their minds they're probably having discussions that they've never had before again it comes back to what tom and alex both talked about is this education and awareness about real food where does it come from how does it get to me what does it mean how has it changed over the past how can i make better decisions um so it all comes back down to to the sharing of ideas uh while sharing a meal so talking about consumer trends towards culinary experiences i have another poll here lisa if you want to pop that up so at the beginning we know that a lot of you have participated in a culinary event but now we're asking why would you participate one because it's outside rural fresh air safe it's sustainable and ethical you know that you're doing something it's an ethical responsible decision it's local and unique or i know that it's it's it's on a farm and so the food is going to be high quality the winner is it is local and unique it is local and unique i'm also not that surprised by this answer i think that culinary tourism by design is local and unique great so moving on so here's just a quick slide about recently trending activities um that are in favor for agritourism experience that are in favor for culinary tourism experiences on farms like tom said there's this heightened interest in gardening and urban farming there's more awareness around supporting local producers there's more interest and in cooking and in discovery in artisanal foods all of these trends that we've seen especially since last uh march last last march um uh these are positive trends towards agritourism and towards the culinary lens you know really combining combining everything and not just leaving up producing food but creating a culinary experience for your visitors so to finish it off offering a curated culinary experience is a unique selling point and a competitive advantage for your farm and that's it thank you jane thank you for such an eloquent and clear summary bringing all of these elements together and we have just five minutes left so i want to do some quick answer questions if we can um we have uh one question that is for it says for alex but i think it's for tom and how do you incorporate or plan to incorporate local traditions or approaches to regenerative farming when you're going to work in different places around the world to set up your your farms as you're being asked to do um so one of the things we do in sussex is we like to encourage a lot of people to learn about upper sussex um crafts so one of the things we're doing at the hotel is we've got a lot of big hedges that are really overgrown um and we've got sheep up there and so instead of us buying lots of metal sheep fencing we're going to lay the hedges which is an old sussex tradition um so we are going to use as many of these old traditions as we can and we invite people to come and get involved with those with those tasks as well so one year we're going to do some hedge laying um if i'm in a different country we'll look at where we're pretty going i have a chat with some of the farmers there it's rebuilding some stonewall boundaries and things and put those things back in place and try and keep things as traditional as possible and using all the different traditional techniques the thing within horticulture and agriculture there's always something to learn i've been in it for a long time now but i'm still learning new things every day from older generations and younger generations who've gone to universities and colleges and they're learning different things and coming out those ideas now what i've found is a lot of this older knowledge we are losing now these older farmers and older landowners are being older retiring or passing away and no one's been there to hold that knowledge some of this knowledge is and it's going to help us in the future as well so i spent a lot of time trying to talk to old farmers which normally means in the pub which is a great shame but that's where we can gain a lot of knowledge from these old farmers and old traditional traditional kind of crafts as well and we looked we always looked to reuse them on farm even down to our machinery my tractor is from 1956 and we've got a potato plant to been using today and that's from the mid 50s these are all really old bits of equipment and things but they still work then the same goes to some of the old crafts as well they're really good old crafts to sort of learn and still use so we use a lot of the old cross and old ways in the way we farm our kind of saying is we need to go backwards to go forwards we need to go back to an old way of farming uh where we didn't cover everything chemicals and artificial fertilizers before the first and second world war basically and use those techniques to save our soils moving forward and we try and mix those the old ways and new ways together we still protect the environment we're living and working as well or pub equivalents everywhere one goes so uh to gather and to exchange uh humanity and information um we're at the top of the hour and i just want to invite our panelists to look at the question and answer and they're welcome there are quite a few open questions that are directed towards the individual so if they may stay on for a moment uh and answer that be great otherwise i want to thank you all so much we always have the feeling at the end of each gathering that we could spend hours talking about each topic and are so inspired by all of your work so thank you very much tom alex jane and i turn it to lisa to to close us off thank you i promise i'm not going to ask you another poll there we go that's the slide i wanted um yes we still have a lot of outstanding questions in the q a and in the chat as buried in the chat as well so in closing what i want to do is you know first of all thank catherine tom alex and jane are you know amazing moderators and presenters for sharing their experiences but also thank all of you for for showing up for engaging for asking questions one of the questions one of the first questions to ask was how do we get in touch with um the panelists if we want to follow up afterwards that is that is one that i will take the last 30 seconds to answer within the next couple days we will post this recording and we will also post on our website contact info our panelists have graciously agreed to share their contact info so you can reach out directly to them as well as their slides and resources and other resources that they would like to share so within a couple days we'll send an email to everyone who registered with a link to agritourismworkshop.com where you'll find contact info and follow-up information you'll also find there information about our next gathering we have one were planned and that's on may 11th we'll be talking about regional agritourism strategies for community economic development and we'll hear stories from georgia iran and carrick and canada and then we're planning to take a little bit of a break for a few months but then we are gearing up to come back with a whole new series starting in the fall so um we'll stay in touch over the summer but hope to see many of you during the next during the next month um on may 11th and you know then we'll figure out other ways to stay in touch virtually until we meet again in the fall so thank you so much everyone

2021-04-25 01:23

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