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How Agritourism Works · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
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Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W Chuck Bryant
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Speaker 1: going on, buddy, what's going on in your life? So
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Speaker 1: it's called marketing. You're ready, Yeah, you're ready. Let's market
1:38
Speaker 1: some agri tourism. I have an intro. Let's hear it.
1:42
Speaker 1: So back in two thousand and seven, the little newsine
1:46
Speaker 1: may have slipped past because it was south of the
1:48
Speaker 1: border Florida. Um. A guy named that's usually Mexico. When
1:53
Speaker 1: you say that, By the way, again, if we're not
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Speaker 1: in Texas, we're in Georgia, So south of the border
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Speaker 1: means Florida, Okay. A guy named Ronald Levins Sr. And
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Speaker 1: his wife Jequita Evans got some pretty hefty time. Ron
2:09
Speaker 1: Evans got thirty years for what amounted to indentured servitude. Right.
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Speaker 1: This guy ran some Florida labor camps where people would
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Speaker 1: go and like this is where they would stay and
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Speaker 1: bunk and eat at night, and then during the day
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Speaker 1: they get bus to farms to work right Orange Groves wherever.
2:30
Speaker 1: I think lettuce is big there too. Um the that's
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Speaker 1: all legal and kosher. They they even actually employed the homeless.
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Speaker 1: They would go around to Miami, Baton Rouge, New Orleans.
2:45
Speaker 1: I don't think they came to Atlanta, but they went
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Speaker 1: to big cities in the southeast and recruited homeless people
2:49
Speaker 1: living on the street and said, hey, we can give
2:52
Speaker 1: you a job. You know. Yeah. The problem came with
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Speaker 1: the indentured servitude part. They had a company store at
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Speaker 1: their labor camp and it sold a gallon of wine
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Speaker 1: for forty bucks. And you should know right off the
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Speaker 1: bat that you can't get a good gallon of wine
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Speaker 1: that's all cheap. So they had really inflated prices. Cigarettes
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Speaker 1: were through the roof, and the crack cocaine was above
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Speaker 1: market value. The stuff they sold at the company's store
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Speaker 1: that they eventually got all the guys addicted to gave
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Speaker 1: them advances of crack against their paychecks and basically got
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Speaker 1: these guys mired in debt to where they were indentured
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Speaker 1: servants slaves. He's got the guy finally got busted. He
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Speaker 1: was a really smart dude. Yeah, because he was running
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Speaker 1: him not just in Florida, but North Carolina. Uh and
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Speaker 1: uh possibly South Carolina as well. He's like, I've discovered
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Speaker 1: something really really great. So that um is the exact
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Speaker 1: opposite of agratourism, and that's your setup. That's pretty good. Uh.
3:53
Speaker 1: I thought I didn't see where that was going because
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Speaker 1: the whole time I was sinking. All right, that's fine,
3:58
Speaker 1: he's paying these people, gets homeless people, put them to work,
4:01
Speaker 1: puts them up in a in a bunk. What's what's
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Speaker 1: the problem forty gallon of wine? Well, the crack is
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Speaker 1: kind of a big problem too. He had all the
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Speaker 1: farmers paying him in cash in return for the labor,
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Speaker 1: so he could go buy massive amounts of crack. So
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Speaker 1: the company's store never ran out of crack from what
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Speaker 1: I understand. Well, and they were probably fairly secluded, you know,
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Speaker 1: it's probably the only store around. They probably didn't have cars. No,
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Speaker 1: they probably depended on that store they did and that crack. Yes, So,
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Speaker 1: like I said, that's the opposite of agraa tourism. What
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Speaker 1: is the positive the the I guess what is agri tourism. Well,
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Speaker 1: it's when you want to attract guests and visitors to
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Speaker 1: come to your business, your farm, to either observe or
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Speaker 1: actually take part in the business, the family business. Okay,
4:51
Speaker 1: let's go. Is that good? That's it. That's that was
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Speaker 1: agra tourism explained. Like you know, let's just give it
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Speaker 1: one example. Say you can go to California and you
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Speaker 1: can stay at a winery and instead of just kicking
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Speaker 1: back on the porch all day and sampling wine, you
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Speaker 1: can go out and you can pick the grapes and
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Speaker 1: you can learn how it's done and in the hand
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Speaker 1: and uh eat eat the food that's produced there. Maybe
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Speaker 1: if it's a farm, that kind of thing. So I
5:15
Speaker 1: think sideways, the film was entirely bankrolled by the California
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Speaker 1: Agritourism cartel, I think so. I mean, think about it,
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Speaker 1: like the whole movie is about an agritourism trip that's
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Speaker 1: essentially not even essentially like that is in every way agritourism.
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Speaker 1: Like they went from one one winery to another winery.
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Speaker 1: They watched the grapes get stomped. Did they even did
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Speaker 1: they participate in grape stomping? I don't remember, I don't remember,
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Speaker 1: But did you ever see that video on YouTube. Oh yeah,
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Speaker 1: the woman stomping grapes. Yeah, here in Atlanta. Yeah, it
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Speaker 1: was Fox five that it happened on. And have you
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Speaker 1: seen Keyboard cat Player out d d d Dodo Doo
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Speaker 1: ding do. Yeah, it's pretty It's really sad because she
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Speaker 1: seems genuinely hurt. But the noise that she makes, it's once,
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Speaker 1: you hear it once, it is stuck in your crawl forever. Yeah. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: that's grape stompings. So that's a that's a pretty good
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Speaker 1: example of agri tourism right and wrong. I think we
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Speaker 1: should well, yes, in her case, in her case, but
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Speaker 1: Sideways is a good um example. I took that tour,
6:18
Speaker 1: did I know? No, No, No, that was northern California.
6:23
Speaker 1: We we did the little that Sideways was done in
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Speaker 1: southern like Santa Barbara. Oh I thought it was in
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Speaker 1: Napa Valley. No, no, it was in It was in
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Speaker 1: Napa where it was. Well, then all those places I
6:35
Speaker 1: went to that we're in the movie must have been
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Speaker 1: wrong in the movie. It was supposed to be Napa.
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Speaker 1: Five dollars okay. Actually, actually well, to h the one
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Speaker 1: winery with the guy with a big beard, I actually
6:48
Speaker 1: hung out with that guy for like an hour of
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Speaker 1: drinking wine, the dude from the movie, and like we
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Speaker 1: were the only people in there. The sun was setting.
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Speaker 1: It was one of those magical moments that sounds touching.
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Speaker 1: So chuck, Um, what's the what's the point of agriturism, Well,
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Speaker 1: it helps there. Well, it's because farmers are having to
7:07
Speaker 1: diversify a little bit in most cases to make dough. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I read an exactly. Well, with the advent of the
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Speaker 1: factory farm, right, we've got very a very small percentage
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Speaker 1: of farms number wise, right, Um, say one factory farm
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Speaker 1: equals one farm that's an enormous farm. Uh, in both
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Speaker 1: like revenue and you know, acreage production. Um, they represent
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Speaker 1: a very small number of the number of farms, but
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Speaker 1: just proportionately large, um total of the revenue made and
7:42
Speaker 1: of the stuff produced in the US. Right. So that's industrialization, right,
7:47
Speaker 1: And one of the one of the other aspects of
7:49
Speaker 1: industrial I know where you're going next, but one of
7:51
Speaker 1: the other aspects of industrialization is um apparently you have
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Speaker 1: to have a gross revenue of fifty grand a year
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Speaker 1: from your farm to start to actually be able to
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Speaker 1: sustain your family through farming. Seventy in two thousand seven
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Speaker 1: seventy five. No, I'm sorry. This year, se of farms
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Speaker 1: in the US made less than fifty grand a year.
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Speaker 1: So this is one of the reasons why they're saying, well,
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Speaker 1: I don't really want to give up farming and become
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Speaker 1: a city slicker because I hate city slickers, but I
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Speaker 1: like city slickers money. So let's supplement our income and
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Speaker 1: start some agritourism. Yeah, yeah, that's a great reason. What's
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Speaker 1: the other reason that farmers are being forced to go
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Speaker 1: into agritourism. I'm glad you asked globalization because with the
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Speaker 1: way shipping is now in communication around the world and
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Speaker 1: things move at the speed of light, you're not just
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Speaker 1: competing with the farm like in your county or in
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Speaker 1: your state. You're competing with like a farm across the
8:52
Speaker 1: universe from yourself for the world. In the world. The
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Speaker 1: world's fat enough. Don't bling the galaxy into this. You're
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Speaker 1: you're in big trouble, moon farmer. We get in intergalactic
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Speaker 1: competition moisture farmers. So we've got globalization, industrialization. Those are
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Speaker 1: pretty much the two big drivers of agritourism. But you know,
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Speaker 1: you can't put it past farm folks to to be
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Speaker 1: um well smart and farm smart, and that what they
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Speaker 1: call it. I never heard that, but I love that term.
9:21
Speaker 1: I thought i'd picked that up from you. Are you sure? No,
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Speaker 1: I never have heard that before. Well there's farm smart,
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Speaker 1: farm strong. No, No, that's lived strong, farms smarts. So chuck. Um.
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Speaker 1: There's a few different ways that this can pan out. Right,
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Speaker 1: Let's say you're at the dollar level and you don't
9:43
Speaker 1: care about new stuff. You're just fine sewing your old clothes.
9:48
Speaker 1: But you want to keep farming. Um, you would you
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Speaker 1: would use agritourism as like a supplementary income, right, Yeah,
9:54
Speaker 1: just add a little like you might do tours things
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Speaker 1: like that. And you know I should add that when
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Speaker 1: I was a kid. Was it Robert that wrote this,
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Speaker 1: Robert Lamb? Yeah, it's an unusually thin article from Robert
10:05
Speaker 1: Lamb of stuff to blow your mind. Well, he makes
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Speaker 1: a point early on that, um, it provides a connection
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Speaker 1: that people has been lost between the stuff we put
10:18
Speaker 1: in our body and in the person. Yeah. Because and
10:21
Speaker 1: I've read that and it really hit home because when
10:23
Speaker 1: I was a kid, and this wasn't in like the
10:25
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties, we got our milk from a farm right
10:28
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta, and it wasn't weird. Like we drove
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Speaker 1: to this farm and they had you pull up to
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Speaker 1: the cooler room and there was a guy standing there
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Speaker 1: on the porch and he would just ask what you
10:37
Speaker 1: need and he'd go in the cooler room and go
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Speaker 1: get it for you. And it wasn't like I didn't
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Speaker 1: live in I was in a hill billy And it
10:43
Speaker 1: wasn't the nineteen twenties. This is like in the eight
10:46
Speaker 1: seventies and eighties in in Decabb County, Georgia. Yeah, but now,
10:50
Speaker 1: I mean that seems really weird. Or get anything outside
10:53
Speaker 1: of the grocery, It's not weird. It's more like token.
10:56
Speaker 1: It's like a token experience, right. Yeah. And that that's that's,
10:59
Speaker 1: by the way, is direct marketing aggrotourism, where like you
11:04
Speaker 1: drive to the farm and like you just pull up
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Speaker 1: to a farm stand or something that's down the side
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Speaker 1: of the road. Um. But yeah, we were talking about
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Speaker 1: what's driving agro tourism from the farmer's point of view,
11:14
Speaker 1: but you just touched upon what's driving it from the
11:16
Speaker 1: consumers point of view. And yeah, this whole farm to
11:18
Speaker 1: table movement huge. Well yeah, and it's having it's it's
11:22
Speaker 1: it's the perfect time for aggri tourism because I think
11:26
Speaker 1: it was, was it two thousand eight or nine? Very recently, um,
11:30
Speaker 1: the world population tipped towards cities the first time ever
11:35
Speaker 1: more people lived in cities than in a rural area. Right,
11:39
Speaker 1: the sticks, the sticks. So we're we're we're getting further
11:42
Speaker 1: and further away from our country roots. Right. People won't
11:46
Speaker 1: walk around barefoot anymore, people wear shirts underneath their overalls.
11:51
Speaker 1: It's just you know, urban um. So, I guess this
11:56
Speaker 1: desire to be able to go back to the farm,
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Speaker 1: uh is is definitely part of of why this is
12:02
Speaker 1: why consumers are going there right. Well, and Robert makes
12:05
Speaker 1: a point which is very valid, which is especially if
12:08
Speaker 1: your family, if that was your roots, your ancestry, you
12:11
Speaker 1: may not know anything about that, and it might be
12:14
Speaker 1: a neat way to get in touch with your your
12:16
Speaker 1: ancestry and your roots. Go back. See what it's like
12:20
Speaker 1: the milk a cow because great great granddad did that
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Speaker 1: for a living. Sure, pretty cool. Yeah, you can feel
12:25
Speaker 1: your great great granddad's ghosts looking over your shoulder like
12:28
Speaker 1: you're doing it wrong. Right, You got a yank down
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Speaker 1: and to the left. I've never a milky cow. I
12:34
Speaker 1: don't know how to do it. So you've got supplementary. Uh,
12:38
Speaker 1: there's complementary, which is where it's about half and half.
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Speaker 1: And a good example of this kind of aggri tourism
12:43
Speaker 1: outfit is a pumpkin patch, right, so like they may
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Speaker 1: sell half of their pumpkins to you know, a wholesaler,
12:50
Speaker 1: and then they may keep half of them for the
12:52
Speaker 1: fall tours. And people can walk around and pick their
12:54
Speaker 1: own pumpkin and then carve it and have some snotnose
12:57
Speaker 1: teenager come and smash it, and some awful band will
13:01
Speaker 1: name their band after that act. Jerry just left it
13:04
Speaker 1: and she's like mentioned smashing pumpkin, and so that's complimentary.
13:09
Speaker 1: And then there's primary. And primary is the one where
13:13
Speaker 1: your farm is growing nothing but weeds, right, nothing you
13:19
Speaker 1: can sell, and you turn it into an agriturism destination.
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Speaker 1: Like you all, almost all of your income is coming
13:27
Speaker 1: from the fact that there are people coming to your
13:30
Speaker 1: farm growing stuff. Though well you are you have to
13:34
Speaker 1: like grow something, but it doesn't necessarily have to be sellable, right,
13:38
Speaker 1: as long as people think it looks pretty, then you're fine. Sure.
13:43
Speaker 1: Now there's Back in the director of the U C.
13:46
Speaker 1: Davis's Small Farms program publicly worried that if ranchers and
13:53
Speaker 1: um farmers didn't get in on the Agora tourism action
13:56
Speaker 1: soon enough, the market was going to be open wide
13:58
Speaker 1: enough for like theme park operators to do this, which
14:02
Speaker 1: would be the primary enterprise aspect. And there's a guy
14:05
Speaker 1: who's a former Disney exact who actually started a company
14:10
Speaker 1: to make mazes that take about two hours to get
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Speaker 1: to on farms. Yeah, well, that's that's huge. The corn
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Speaker 1: maze in the fall, that's aggri tourism, buddy. Yeah. Yeah,
14:19
Speaker 1: have you ever done one of those? I haven't. They
14:21
Speaker 1: haven't been terrified at the thought of like getting trapped
14:23
Speaker 1: in there forever? Really? Yeah? Wow? Mazes? Huh. I don't
14:28
Speaker 1: like mazes. I bet the end of the shining is
14:31
Speaker 1: pretty harrowing for you. Huh No, because I'm not there,
14:34
Speaker 1: but yeah, sure, like my I've got like three mirror neurons.
14:37
Speaker 1: If you're Danny, though, then it would have been frightened.
14:39
Speaker 1: I would have just laid down and died and they
14:41
Speaker 1: come kill me. Dad think a quit. Uh So. Robert
14:46
Speaker 1: likens it to eco tourism, which is um, not too
14:49
Speaker 1: far off. Whn't you think they both have tourism in
14:54
Speaker 1: the name. Well, yeah, And the cool thing about um,
14:56
Speaker 1: aggro tourism and eco touris are actually more aggroturism is
15:00
Speaker 1: you don't have to necessarily throw a lot of money
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Speaker 1: into it as a farmer, because you've got the farm
15:07
Speaker 1: you Sometimes you just got to open the gates and
15:09
Speaker 1: advertise it, say, come to our apple farm and pick
15:12
Speaker 1: some apples. So it's not like you gotta sink a
15:14
Speaker 1: lot of money into an enterprise. And um, one of
15:18
Speaker 1: the I think one of the rules of thumb, if
15:19
Speaker 1: you're a agri tourism farmer and you're actually trying to
15:24
Speaker 1: sell some of your stuff too, you want to keep
15:26
Speaker 1: the littlest kids like occupied away from your protest because
15:30
Speaker 1: apparently they represent a huge portion of shrinkage. Yeah, so
15:34
Speaker 1: I guess petting zoos are the best way to do it.
15:38
Speaker 1: It is because if you've ever wanted to watch a
15:41
Speaker 1: small child inadvertently kill a rabbit by petting it too eagerly,
15:46
Speaker 1: then agro tourism is right up your alley. That doesn't happen,
15:49
Speaker 1: Sure it does. That's awful. Kids and their rough love
15:56
Speaker 1: they just don't know. Let's talk about some different types
15:58
Speaker 1: of agro tourism checkers. Well, you mentioned the direct market,
16:02
Speaker 1: which is like fruit stands, that kind of thing. Um.
16:05
Speaker 1: Robert calls this one education and experience, and this is
16:10
Speaker 1: more along the lines of like a bed and bright
16:12
Speaker 1: like seren By, you know, Sara By, South Atlanta. I saw, Yeah,
16:14
Speaker 1: it's pretty cool. You know, they have an apprenticeship to
16:18
Speaker 1: that lasts from March to November. Yeah, I looked it up.
16:22
Speaker 1: Pays eight hundred bucks a week plus housing and utilities,
16:25
Speaker 1: and they teach you the ins and outs of organic farming, UM,
16:29
Speaker 1: keeping farm records. Like it's it's pretty well organized. It
16:32
Speaker 1: sounds like there's actually, while we're on that, there's UM.
16:35
Speaker 1: If you go onto the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service
16:39
Speaker 1: site and then search sustainable farming internships and apprenticeships, it
16:44
Speaker 1: brings them up for the entire country. Yeah. So if
16:47
Speaker 1: you're into this kind of thing, if if you want
16:49
Speaker 1: to be like an ag culturist rather than an a tourist,
16:53
Speaker 1: it's it's out there for you. You know, if I
16:55
Speaker 1: was fifteen years younger and single, you would find me
16:58
Speaker 1: down at Serenby Living, right, is that right, Yeah, man,
17:01
Speaker 1: I'd love that really. Yeah, it's gorgeous down there. So
17:06
Speaker 1: that's the idea of like the bed and breakfast package
17:08
Speaker 1: where they say, hey, stay at our bed and breakfast
17:10
Speaker 1: and work a little bit on our farm and learn
17:12
Speaker 1: how to turn butter and eat the food that we
17:15
Speaker 1: serve you that's straight from the farm from the table. Yeah.
17:17
Speaker 1: You saw that one Maverick Farm and and uh Carolina, Yeah, yeah,
17:24
Speaker 1: I love that. Throw throw that down. It's in Valley Crucis,
17:27
Speaker 1: North Carolina, and it's a bed and breakfast. It's situated
17:31
Speaker 1: in a hundred and forty year old, hundred and twenty
17:34
Speaker 1: five year old farmhouse right. Uh. And it's a hundred
17:37
Speaker 1: and twenty bucks at night for a room. But you
17:41
Speaker 1: can work off up to I think bill at seven
17:46
Speaker 1: bucks an hour by acting as farm labor. I love
17:49
Speaker 1: farm hand. And then you eat with the family in
17:52
Speaker 1: their home every night, stuff that they grow. Yeah, And
17:54
Speaker 1: they said that you can and it's an option if
17:56
Speaker 1: you want to donate a little money back for the meal,
17:58
Speaker 1: you can. Well I'm trying to picture you there. You'd
18:01
Speaker 1: be like, aw, you're working twenties a good rate. I'll
18:06
Speaker 1: just be here on the porch watching you people work.
18:09
Speaker 1: I'm paying to watch other people work on a farm. Uh.
18:11
Speaker 1: And then the other type is recreation an event agriturism,
18:16
Speaker 1: and that's um more like the Big Fall Festival, corn mazes,
18:20
Speaker 1: pumpkin picking, hay rides, sheep here in contest did they
18:23
Speaker 1: have those awesome yeah pie eating contest. Yeah. Basically, if
18:28
Speaker 1: there's an event that you're attending and um, say a
18:33
Speaker 1: pageant and it's miss and then insert your own vegetable,
18:37
Speaker 1: that's the miss uh squash of Canton or whatever. That
18:41
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Another one that was pretty cool that
18:45
Speaker 1: um he mentions in here is the U. S Department
18:47
Speaker 1: of Agriculture operates one called home Place by the Lakes
18:51
Speaker 1: National Recreationary in Tennessee. And they go a step further
18:56
Speaker 1: and combine a little like Colonial Williamsburg in with it.
19:00
Speaker 1: They'll dress up instead of a Civil War reenactment, they'll
19:04
Speaker 1: be dressed up in the old school clothes showing you
19:06
Speaker 1: how to churn butter. Imagine like the AMAS should probably
19:09
Speaker 1: be like, dude, that's our life. Have you come watch us?
19:12
Speaker 1: You read exactly? Um, it's like the opposite of rum Springer. Yeah, Um,
19:19
Speaker 1: that's what we just figured out the key to a tourism.
19:22
Speaker 1: It's the opposite of rum Springer. Have have you ever
19:27
Speaker 1: seen the alig episode Um where Barat goes to like
19:31
Speaker 1: a living history farm in South Carolina. I strongly recommend
19:36
Speaker 1: that one. It's hilarious. Uh. There's another one called the
19:41
Speaker 1: Conner Prairie Living History Museum, which is sort of what
19:44
Speaker 1: you're talking about right there. This one's pretty serious. Yeah.
19:47
Speaker 1: This is in Fisher's, Indiana, and there's an outdoor museum
19:51
Speaker 1: and you can see how things operated in the eighteen hundreds.
19:54
Speaker 1: And then they go a little step further and they
19:56
Speaker 1: actually have a program called Follow the North Star which
19:59
Speaker 1: allow as you the chance to see what it was
20:02
Speaker 1: like to be a slave trying to escape. Yeah, which
20:07
Speaker 1: I wonder how they do that. I think they have
20:09
Speaker 1: guys and dogs running after you. Really, yeah, tracking you.
20:13
Speaker 1: That's what I took from it. Yeah, that's that's tricky.
20:17
Speaker 1: I mean, that's living history right there. I don't know
20:20
Speaker 1: if I want to do that. Can you see yourself
20:22
Speaker 1: running through the woods like hete agritourism. This is horrible, So, Josh.
20:28
Speaker 1: One of the ideas behind agriturism is that people will
20:31
Speaker 1: be so uh, inspired by their trip, that it will
20:36
Speaker 1: form sort of a relationship with the farm and that
20:39
Speaker 1: they will want to support that farm even after they
20:42
Speaker 1: have left the farm. This appears to be like a
20:45
Speaker 1: long term goal of agritourism. It's not just short term.
20:48
Speaker 1: It's more like they want to remind the city slickers
20:52
Speaker 1: that farms still exist and that the city slickers are
20:54
Speaker 1: welcome to come by and empty their wallets there, like
20:58
Speaker 1: keep coming back again and again. And actually that works
21:02
Speaker 1: because I was raised as an agritourist um going to
21:08
Speaker 1: McQueen orchard in Holland, Ohio pick apples, and still to
21:12
Speaker 1: this day, like my family when we visit Ohio, we'll
21:15
Speaker 1: go to McQueen's. We scheduled it around the time where
21:18
Speaker 1: the apples are ripe, amazing, best donuts in the entire world.
21:22
Speaker 1: Like I kid you not, Yes, everything is just perfect.
21:24
Speaker 1: They're just go go to McQueen apple fritters to be
21:27
Speaker 1: apple fritters, apples there, apple cider is just I mean,
21:31
Speaker 1: and the apples themselves. You just climb the trees and
21:34
Speaker 1: pick them and eat them and you know, take off
21:36
Speaker 1: your shirt and it's awesome. Uh So, where I was
21:40
Speaker 1: going though with the with the repeat businesses. Um, you've
21:43
Speaker 1: heard of the the c s A, the community supported
21:45
Speaker 1: agriculture programs. Yeah, and that's when you sign up as
21:49
Speaker 1: a collective. While you sign up personally, you form a
21:52
Speaker 1: collective as a whole. And um, you basically pay money
21:56
Speaker 1: up front to get a box of vegetables like once
22:00
Speaker 1: a month. I mean, the programs are different delivered to
22:02
Speaker 1: your home or sometimes you go pick them up. And
22:04
Speaker 1: the cool thing is, and you should know this because
22:07
Speaker 1: some people might not think it's so cool, is you
22:08
Speaker 1: don't know what you're gonna get. Yeah, but you get
22:11
Speaker 1: a lot of what you don't know what you're gonna get. Well, yeah,
22:14
Speaker 1: so you gotta be open minded. You gotta be willing
22:15
Speaker 1: to experiment with vegetables you may never have cooked with before.
22:18
Speaker 1: It's probably a good idea to know how to can
22:21
Speaker 1: things because you really get a lot of stuff. This
22:25
Speaker 1: is one of the things I've always heard from people
22:27
Speaker 1: who have co op subscriptions that like all this scale,
22:32
Speaker 1: all this scale. Tennessee Tech has a program. They say
22:36
Speaker 1: that they're the first university in the state of Tennessee
22:38
Speaker 1: to offer a degree in agriturism because they say this
22:43
Speaker 1: is the future, and you're gonna need managers and people
22:45
Speaker 1: that know the trends in this business. I think this
22:47
Speaker 1: represents the people who are like theme parks are going
22:50
Speaker 1: to get into this. You think like let us land
22:53
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. No, I wouldn't call it that,
22:57
Speaker 1: but possibly. Uh. I got a couple of stats for you. Yeah, yeah,
23:02
Speaker 1: it's successful, right, Well, yeah, I got one for the
23:05
Speaker 1: state of Colorado. At least they say that agritourism contributed
23:08
Speaker 1: two point two billion dollars to their state's economy and
23:12
Speaker 1: that thirteen point two million visitors engaged in one in
23:16
Speaker 1: last year in agritourism in Colorado. It's pretty awesome. So
23:20
Speaker 1: the one I have is from the two thousand seven
23:23
Speaker 1: U s Senses of agriculture three thousand, three hundred fifty
23:27
Speaker 1: farms in the US. I have some sort of agritourism
23:31
Speaker 1: thing going on, right, and about thirty six hundred of
23:34
Speaker 1: those were making grand or more a year from it. Yeah,
23:38
Speaker 1: this billion number seems really suspecting me. I wonder if
23:40
Speaker 1: it's not a million for Colorado. Yeah, because the the
23:43
Speaker 1: total for all of the US and two thousand seven
23:46
Speaker 1: five sixty six million, I don't know if that was
23:48
Speaker 1: gross revenue, because it sounded like your stat was um
23:53
Speaker 1: like economic impact. That would include like the gas people
23:58
Speaker 1: coming into the state. Yea, you know the hotels that
24:01
Speaker 1: they stayed in when they were picking apple. But that's
24:05
Speaker 1: what the Colorado State Extension Service said. Well, they're pretty
24:08
Speaker 1: well known to be rather liberal with their numbers hippies.
24:13
Speaker 1: So let's see what else, Chuck, I don't have much else,
24:16
Speaker 1: do you The greatest winery scene of all time? Not
24:20
Speaker 1: in Sideways, the British comedy series Absolutely fabulous. Oh yeah,
24:28
Speaker 1: and you know I didn't watch that show. I knew
24:29
Speaker 1: it was supposed to be great, but in that particular
24:32
Speaker 1: episode was hilarious. Well, I think going through a winery
24:36
Speaker 1: is a great way to uh participate in negraatorism. And
24:41
Speaker 1: not just wineries. They have um like homegrown breweries now too.
24:44
Speaker 1: What like brewery people grow the hops on their land
24:49
Speaker 1: and make the beer and you drink it. Yeah. I'd
24:52
Speaker 1: like to go to the sire Nevada plant. I would
24:55
Speaker 1: say it's one of my goals in life. Find where
24:59
Speaker 1: they make that sweeten nectar. Have you been to uh Sweetwater? Uh? No?
25:05
Speaker 1: I never suck right down the street. It's like a
25:09
Speaker 1: good little happy, our place. That's what I hear. Yeah,
25:11
Speaker 1: it's fun, give you tastings and all. That is that aggrotourism. No,
25:15
Speaker 1: not really, not at all. Industrial tourism maybe yeah, that's
25:19
Speaker 1: visiting a brewery. So that's it. That's agritourism plus a
25:23
Speaker 1: touch of industrial tourism, just as an extra little nugget.
25:27
Speaker 1: That was free as it was alright. So if you
25:30
Speaker 1: want to learn more about agritourism, read an article by
25:34
Speaker 1: Robert Lamb. Just to complete the series, you can type
25:38
Speaker 1: in agritourism a g R I tourism in the handy
25:42
Speaker 1: search bart how stuff works dot com? And support your
25:45
Speaker 1: local farm. Get on the internet and there's something near nearby. Yeah,
25:49
Speaker 1: there's a ton of stuff. Oh and actually, what's that website?
25:53
Speaker 1: You got one? I do um. I gave you the
25:56
Speaker 1: one for the apprenticeships. If you want to actually be
25:59
Speaker 1: the person working that people are gawking at. Right, if
26:02
Speaker 1: you want to gawk at people working on a farm,
26:04
Speaker 1: go to rural Bounty. Are you are a l bounty
26:08
Speaker 1: dot com? I thought it would be aggrigawker the same thing. Okay,
26:13
Speaker 1: it's time now for administrative details. You're ready? Should we
26:24
Speaker 1: set this up for people who don't know what this
26:26
Speaker 1: means because it's the worst title ever. It is not.
26:29
Speaker 1: It's very sustinct and to the point. These are gifts
26:32
Speaker 1: thank you as from fans that send us things in
26:35
Speaker 1: and hopes that we will promote their little Etsy site.
26:38
Speaker 1: Well not just gifts like sometimes correspondence correspondence postcards. So um,
26:43
Speaker 1: well it's been a while and we've gotten some pretty
26:45
Speaker 1: good stuff, a lot of stuff. This is gonna take
26:48
Speaker 1: like an hour, it is. I just want to say
26:50
Speaker 1: thanks to Mr Cohen at Waterford Union High School and Waterford,
26:53
Speaker 1: Wisconsin for those nice letter and the information on um
26:59
Speaker 1: goats that produced spider silk, including it drawing go badgers.
27:04
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah he was actually was it bad Badger for
27:08
Speaker 1: a while? Wisconsin. Oh, I thought I made that up.
27:13
Speaker 1: Now you're thinking of Wolverines. It's a lucky guess you go.
27:16
Speaker 1: Uh Center College women's volleyball team sent us one of
27:19
Speaker 1: their T shirts. They are the Spandex Mafia. Yeah we
27:22
Speaker 1: all three got one. Yes. Thanks to Kristen for even
27:26
Speaker 1: more newgat Thank you Stilicious Kristen Ferguson with her neat.
27:32
Speaker 1: Thanks to Sarah Michelle for the copy of Dianetics hardcover,
27:36
Speaker 1: No less, you got that. Wow. Jeremy and Heather in Asheville,
27:41
Speaker 1: North Carolina make Eco friend the artwork. Custom would carve
27:45
Speaker 1: wedding cake toppers and they sent Um they made a
27:48
Speaker 1: little Josh, a little Jerry and a little Chuck and
27:51
Speaker 1: they're really awesome looking. I put it on Facebook. You
27:54
Speaker 1: were very proud of this. I just thought they looked
27:56
Speaker 1: really cool and they were you know, they look like us.
27:59
Speaker 1: And you can shop with him if you would like
28:01
Speaker 1: at ah You're a star house dot et s y
28:06
Speaker 1: dot com. That is, you are a star house dot
28:10
Speaker 1: etsy dot com. Nice Chuck. Thanks to Kentucky and night
28:14
Speaker 1: Nikki for the postcard of the London I yeah. Thanks
28:19
Speaker 1: a mill to Kevin at jadabug roasters dot com. That's
28:22
Speaker 1: j A d A b u g Roasters dot com
28:26
Speaker 1: for the not one, but two pounds of coffee that
28:29
Speaker 1: why didn't I see any of this? You always give
28:31
Speaker 1: me the coffee. This didn't even pass this one by you, man.
28:34
Speaker 1: I'll bring it in for you if you want. David
28:37
Speaker 1: Polly uh San Francisco. He runs a small print shop
28:40
Speaker 1: and he sent um some cool custom concert poster city
28:43
Speaker 1: prints and I collect these posters, and he said he
28:47
Speaker 1: would keep me in mind for the future and sending
28:49
Speaker 1: me some of these does very nice. Did he send
28:51
Speaker 1: you two of the two versions of the same as
28:53
Speaker 1: that the one I have that Jerry got one to
28:55
Speaker 1: we all three got Okay, that's very cool, very cool.
28:57
Speaker 1: I would have liked to have been at that festival.
29:00
Speaker 1: Thanks to Casey from Huntsville for the very nice letter
29:03
Speaker 1: and the sketch of the octopus. Keep listening, Casey, and
29:07
Speaker 1: we will keep you laughing. Right. Jennifer of Lynchburg, Virginia
29:10
Speaker 1: sent us little Nimn Christmas ornaments. Very cute. They are
29:16
Speaker 1: very cute. Yes, thanks a million to Kate in Sunny
29:20
Speaker 1: Vale for our awesome card. That's the one that has
29:22
Speaker 1: us as the Estonian wedding couple. Uh. And the thank
29:27
Speaker 1: you to Matt and Zach at the our List podcast
29:31
Speaker 1: if you've been on there. Yeah, they sent the shirts. Yes,
29:34
Speaker 1: they did send the shirts. And at first, without reading
29:37
Speaker 1: the card, I thought it was a drawing of Uze.
29:39
Speaker 1: These guys are adoppel gangers. Yeah, I saw it. I
29:41
Speaker 1: was like, it's sort of a good likeness, but not really.
29:43
Speaker 1: Right now, I'm like, okay, it's them. So they have
29:47
Speaker 1: a podcast called our List. You want to check it out. Um,
29:50
Speaker 1: it's our List podcast, I believe. And speaking of shirts,
29:54
Speaker 1: standard clothing in print in Canada, North Carolina sent some
29:56
Speaker 1: shirts and I got a Hoosier's T shirt, a Jimmy
30:01
Speaker 1: Chitwood number fifteen. Who's your T shirt? It's because you
30:05
Speaker 1: are a well loved celebrity. Jim Jerry got one and
30:08
Speaker 1: you got one different ones and that is standard clothing
30:11
Speaker 1: in print dot com. Thank you to Amy who sent
30:15
Speaker 1: us her copy of or a copy of her doctoral
30:19
Speaker 1: thesis A Metrica with an exclamation point about the metric
30:24
Speaker 1: system and how it should be used in America. And
30:26
Speaker 1: it's pretty awesome. I wrote a blog post on it.
30:28
Speaker 1: She mailed it. I got it like two days later,
30:31
Speaker 1: so you can check that out. Just type in A M, E,
30:33
Speaker 1: T R, I C A and it brings up some stuff.
30:36
Speaker 1: I don't think she has an actual site for it though,
30:38
Speaker 1: although she's on Twitter much neglected Twitter account. A Metrica interesting.
30:42
Speaker 1: I got two more. Matt invented his own chewing gum.
30:46
Speaker 1: It's good too. It's called think Gum and it's supposedly
30:50
Speaker 1: brain boosting with herbal extracts and naturally caffeinated and you
30:54
Speaker 1: can find that at think gum dot com. And my
30:57
Speaker 1: last one a little controversial. In my house, we got
31:00
Speaker 1: handmade soaps sent to us from Jan Maurice Silvera Yeah
31:04
Speaker 1: World soaps. W h I R L E ED soap.
31:08
Speaker 1: And I told Emily about this because everyone knows my
31:10
Speaker 1: wife makes her soup. She was like, let me see that.
31:13
Speaker 1: She checked it out and checked out the ink. She
31:14
Speaker 1: immediately looks at the ingredients. This first thing she always said.
31:16
Speaker 1: She was like, Oh, it's actually you know, made of
31:19
Speaker 1: essential oils and and olive oil and palm oils. Good. Yeah,
31:23
Speaker 1: it's really good soap. Um. Thank you to Cameron, your
31:26
Speaker 1: letter got to us just fine. Thanks to the Pinks
31:29
Speaker 1: for sending their c D. Thanks thanks to l Michelle
31:32
Speaker 1: down in Panama for the postcard. Very titillating postcard. Um.
31:38
Speaker 1: Thanks to Vanessa for the Jackalope postcard. I still got
31:43
Speaker 1: some more chuck hanging there. Thanks to Jan from Niagara
31:46
Speaker 1: Falls for a postcard of the namesake of her hometown.
31:51
Speaker 1: Thanks to amare It and Boone, North Carolina for the
31:54
Speaker 1: nice letter We'll see what we can do. Thanks to
31:57
Speaker 1: Laurel who sent us the Meyer Lemon Vanilla beam rmalade.
32:01
Speaker 1: I didn't know about that either, Okay, I was. I
32:03
Speaker 1: didn't know if I gave you some or not. You
32:05
Speaker 1: just funnel some of these straight to Josh's house about it.
32:08
Speaker 1: I had to ask you for the gum. Yeah, and
32:11
Speaker 1: I gave you the whole box. Thank you to Nick
32:15
Speaker 1: from mud River Coffee mud River Coffee dot com. More
32:20
Speaker 1: coffee you. This is where I got the idea to
32:22
Speaker 1: just keep the two pounds for myself. I was like, well,
32:24
Speaker 1: let's split this year. Like, here're the coffee guy, you
32:26
Speaker 1: keep it. Awesome coffee, um, let's see. Thanks to Katerina
32:31
Speaker 1: from Lenifalou, Hungary for the nice postcard of Joseph Stalind.
32:36
Speaker 1: Thanks to Robert for the Route sixties six postcard. Thanks
32:39
Speaker 1: to zach Netzer for the awesome um Mix CD. Thanks
32:43
Speaker 1: to Andrew Smith at Andrew Smith art dot com for
32:46
Speaker 1: the DVDs Did you see this? Thank you to Jen
32:51
Speaker 1: from Australia for the postcard of the theme park, and
32:54
Speaker 1: thank you to staff Sergeant Rusting Kozahar cozy R. I
32:58
Speaker 1: think it's cozy R for the postcard from Afghanistan. Be safe,
33:03
Speaker 1: that is it? Yes, all of you, not just the
33:06
Speaker 1: staff sergeant. Everyone be safe, um, and thank you very
33:09
Speaker 1: much for sending us some stuff. If you guys want
33:12
Speaker 1: to run in droves to the stuff, you should know
33:14
Speaker 1: facebook page and UM. If you have a link that
33:18
Speaker 1: you want to share with everybody, please do because all
33:21
Speaker 1: this stuff was great. Thank you and if you want
33:23
Speaker 1: to send us something, you can find our address by
33:26
Speaker 1: emailing us. Uh. It's stuff podcast at how stuff works
33:31
Speaker 1: dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics.
33:37
Speaker 1: Is it how stuff works dot com. To learn more
33:39
Speaker 1: about the podcast, click on the podcast icon in the
33:42
Speaker 1: upper right corner of our homepage. The How Stuff Works
33:45
Speaker 1: iPhone app has arrived. Download it today on iTunes. Brought
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Speaker 1: to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,
33:55
Speaker 1: are you