If we’d won $100,000 in the lottery the feeling would be
very different.
We’ve received a Federal Government grant, and while
we’re elated and buoyed, there is a great sense of obligation.
As the apple farmer at the market told me, we’d better
spend his tax dollars well.
The other thing is we’ve got to come up with matching
funds.
A couple of months ago Guy spent a week writing a massive
application for a T-QUAL grant. The grants are competitive and merit-based, and
aim to boost the tourism industry in Australia.
As the post office staff starting locking the doors late
one afternoon, we pushed 16,000 words into a post bag.
We’ve always wanted to move into farm tourism – and when
650 people turned up for our open day in April, we knew there was real demand.
We can all see the growing interest in real food, cooking,
farmers’ markets, ethical production…. but research is showing people also want
hands-on farm experiences, so they can get back to the roots of what they’re
eating.
And that’s fantastic – because 85 per cent of Australians
live in urbanised areas, and are so disconnected from farming.
Farm tourism is a big thing in Europe, the UK, and New
Zealand, but it still hasn’t really caught on in Australia.
I imagine it might be because of lack of labour on farms,
and lack of farmers’ confidence to market and promote what they do.
But if farmers want to keep their families and businesses
going, they’ve got to diversify their incomes.
In Tasmania, 70 per cent of farmers have to work
off-farm. From our experience, that’s really hard: you become torn between two
jobs; you wish you were at home; and you become resentful.
Onlookers probably wonder why north-west Tasmanians
haven’t embraced food tourism.
We grow and make so many products, and we have small
farms with soils suited to niche production.
But we’ve been trying to compete on a global market with
commodities – and we just can’t keep doing it.
We think food tourism is vital in building the brand of
this region.
At the moment few tourists stop as they speed along the
Bass highway heading for Strahan or Cradle Mountain.
We’ve got to give them a reason to stop – and not just one or two places offering good food and farm experiences.
We need a whole chain of businesses – farm stays, cooking
schools, berry farms, wineries, cheese factories, restaurants using purely
local ingredients – to make the trip worthwhile for visitors.
For our part, we’re planning a centre where visitors will
learn about rare breeds; we’ll have a butchery and commercial kitchen; and
there’ll be a focus on giving our visitors a full paddock-to-plate experience –
gumboots included.
And for the full story on what we’re planning, you’ll
just have to stay tuned...
