Apple orchards, pumpkin patches and flower fields: Iowa farmers see the growing success of agritourism

Just north of Fort Dodge, Denny Stucky inspected an apple tree ready for harvest.

“These are Haralson apples,” Stucky said, pulling one off a branch. “They are a very versatile apple. They’re good eating and excellent for baking.”

Stucky and his wife, Emily, own and operate The Community Orchard, where there are nearly 6,000 apple trees and 14 varieties.

Visitors buy them by the bag. But Stucky emphasized that this 100-acre property relies on much more than apple sales.

“It’s very important to have a full day’s experience here at the orchard,” Stucky said.

He pointed at a large white building. Inside the Apple House staff in the café wiped down tables after the lunch rush. Shoppers walked upstairs to the boutique or over to the market to buy jams, donuts and cider.

Outside, kids bounced on a giant jumping pillow and ran across a farm-themed playground. Families fed goats and picked out gourds in the pumpkin patch.

Stucky said a crisp October weekend can draw in 10,000 visitors.

“We’ll spin a couple thousand caramel apples every weekend to prepare for those,” Stucky said.

The Community Orchard is one of nearly 400 farms in Iowa that generates at least some income from agritourism. It’s the idea of selling experiences — not just products — on a farm.

Traditional forms of agritourism include letting visitors pick their own apples, pumpkins and Christmas trees. In recent years, it’s become much more diverse. Some offer glamping and specialty dinners with local chefs. Others host flower arranging workshops, live music and food trucks. Paintball and pumpkin cannons are another option.

“We hear a lot about big farms getting bigger and small farms finding it challenging to be as sustainable,” said Kendra Meyer, a program specialist with the small farms team at Iowa State University Extension and Outreach and coordinator for the Visit Iowa Farms program. "Agritourism provides opportunity for some of these small farms to stay a small farm but be sustainable and diversify their operation to increase their revenue."

After steadily increasing for more than a decade, on-farm income from agritourism in Iowa jumped from $4.8 million in 2017 to $10.2 million in 2022, according to the latest U.S. Census of Agriculture , which was released in February. The number of farm operations with agritourism income increased by 10% across the same five-year span.

Meyer said COVID-19 spurred a lot of the growth. People were eager to get out of their homes and pandemic routines.

“They could experience those farms still in a way that was comfortable and safe for them,” Meyer said.

Inviting visitors to a farm does comes with some new hurdles for the owners. They need liability insurance and licenses to sell food. Meyer’s team offers resources to cover this and other areas of risk management.

Agritourism may also require more time planning events and dealing with logistical headaches, said Dan Fillius, an ISU Extension field specialist for commercial vegetables and specialty crops.

“[Agritourism] doesn’t work for everybody. But for those who really are into the hospitality side of things, and catering to that experience, it can make a lot of money and be quite lucrative for farmers,” Fillius said.

He expects agritourism will grow and diversify in the coming years.

“People continue to move to urban centers and have that nostalgia for what they had growing up, or what their families longer ago had and that they seek to return to,” Fillius said.

Even if it paints an idealized version of farm life, Fillius and Meyer said agritourism can help people understand and appreciate where their food comes from.

Back at The Community Orchard, the families have left for the day. The sun hangs low by the bank of the Des Moines River. Couples and small groups of friends gather at the entrance of a corn maze for an adult-only “Wine Your Way Out” event. Samples of hard cider and beer — made with apples from the orchard — are scattered throughout.

Brittney Arndorfer drove over an hour from Swea City, near the Minnesota border.

“I grew up coming here as a little kid. Now I feel like there are more things for adults to do,” Arndorfer said.

She visited the farm with two friends she met while teaching at the same school in northern Iowa. One is Abigail Frommelt, from Eagle Grove.

“This is a yearly tradition for us to get together and come to the apple orchard every year,” Frommelt said.

They say taking home a bag of apples at the end of a full day is a bonus.