Adapting Extension Agritourism Training for Undergraduate Education

Cooperative Extension educators at Land Grant Universities have taught non-traditional students within the agricultural community and general populous for over 100 years. Much of the information presented in the field is also valuable to undergraduate students within the confines of traditional university classrooms. Many traditional students seek practical and applied research based agricultural information. In 2012, the Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station, Cooperative Extension Agritourism Working Group presented comprehensive agritourism workshops throughout New Jersey to educate extension clientele on a number of topics. Topics presented included risk management, safety and marketing. The working group began preparation to teach a similar class to undergraduates in a traditional classroom setting at Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences. At Rutgers NJAES, extension faculty hold graduate degrees and achieve tenure like their fellow teaching and research faculty at the university. The undergraduate class (11:015:315 Direct Farm Marketing and Agritourism), was developed as an agricultural marketing class. The class was offered during the fall, 2013 semester and was designed to prepare students to manage agritourism or direct marketing operations. Key topics covered in the course included:  agritourism expansion and evolution in the United States;  resource assessment,  agritourism feasibility plans; marketing; enterprise budgeting and basic financial analysis;  hospitality/customer service;  safety/risk management and liability; and regulatory and policy issues. The course was deemed a required undergraduate course for students in the agriculture major. The semester long, three-credit course was presented in the classroom by four agricultural agents and an extension specialist using a team-teaching approach. The course included tours of two highly successful commercial farms with agritourism marketing, organized by the local County Agricultural Agent proximate to campus. Student interaction and discussion with the farm operators was a key lesson component, providing hands on learning. Students found on-farm experiences to be a valuable learning tool. Exposing students to farm operations is one method extension can use to facilitate hands-on learning. In lieu of a final exam, students were assigned a semester long project to develop a comprehensive plan for a hypothetical agritourism farm from a farm scenario assigned to them during the first lecture. Responses collected from student surveys at the end of the semester were overwhelmingly positive. Some students responded, “this was the most valuable and extensive class they have had during their coursework”.