Turning Crop Production Into An Agritourism Experience
Tim Hammerich
News Reporter
As many farmers wonder how to add value to their operations, some are turning to agritourism. Andrew Miller of Tulip Valley Farms shares how in his experience, tulips have become more than just a crop, and instead a revenue-generating experience that brings visitors directly to the farm.
Miller.. “So yes, it's, there's making money selling tulips, but it's really making money, I'm charging people for an experience, and that's full stop, right? So the surface area of the business model, and again, I love so many of my old farmer friends that'll tell me, you know, the maximum doesn't matter what you grow, it matters what you can sell. And so moving backwards from what you can sell, we knew that we could sell an on-farm experience in the spring related to color, right? And tulips just happened to be the medium.”
Miller explains how they have turned away from the commercial side of tulips and found value within the production itself.
Miller… “So moving towards the commercial side, we could turn around and say, well, I could grow tulips and I could sell them wholesale, right? Well, the markets aren't that good at that, right? And so that would be on the commercial side. I gotta pick them, batch them, sell them, refrigerate them, all of that stuff. And so I skip all of that and I say my, the, the production of tulips is one of my, you know, others, an aspect that goes into that. But the commercialization of tulips as an experience is what I work backwards from.”
To learn more about Miller’s operation, visit tulipvalley.com
