DURANGO, Colo.—Tourists and local folks whose interest in food extends beyond what’s on their plate are creating a growing industry in La Plata County.
It’s agritourism, and in La Plata County it means taking in farms, herb shops, vineyards, bakeries, health food stores, microbreweries, dude ranches and chocolate factories to see where and how food is produced.
“People are wanting to know where their food comes from,” Anne Klein Barney, public relations specialist with the Durango Area Tourism Office, said this week. “The trend started in Europe, but it’s catching on here.”
A U.S. Department of Agriculture survey in 2004 (the latest data available) found 52,000 farms received a total of $955 million income from recreational activities such as hunting, fishing, on-location rodeos and petting zoos.
The survey found, too, that natural features such as water, topography and climate are conducive to farm recreation.
Klein Barney brought the idea for food forays home from last year’s Governor’s Conference on Tourism, where she participated on a panel discussing creative industries.
“Panelists from Boulder, Delta and Chaffee counties talked about their agritours,” Klein Barney said. “I thought, ‘Hey, we’ve got more than they do. We can do this.'”
She saw an increase in agritourism in La Plata County last year, Klein Barney said. She didn’t keep statistics but said it is much more noticeable.
Klein Barney credits the growth to the Durango Farmers Market and the Local First movement, which keeps dollars circulating in the community and creates jobs.
A map of La Plata County created by the tourism office and available at several locations gives contact information for 44 venues—some are in more than one category—that have a direct or peripheral connection to food production.
One destination is the 1,100-acre Fox Fire Farms southeast of Ignacio.
“I think people want to be more aware of where food comes from,” said Brent Walter, a member of the Parry family that owns Fox Fire Farms.
This is the second year that Fox Fire has taken visitors by shaded tour trailers to see calves, goat kids and lambs, Walter said. Visitors also can tour the vineyard.
Children can get up close to the newborn farm animals, Walters said. They also visit the renovated one-room Lower Spring Creek Schoolhouse.
The 24-by-18-foot room housed eight grades for an unknown number of years in the early 1900s. The structure was on the ranch when the Parrys bought the land.
Up the Animas Valley, the extended James family is in its fourth year of guided tours on a 400-acre spread. Jennifer Wheeling is the tour guide.
Tours, two-hour outings twice on Tuesday and Thursday and a single three-hour tour on Wednesday and Saturday, take in raw-milk cheese production, a vegetable garden, pastures where multispecies, grass-fed livestock graze and a spruce-tree farm.
The three-hour tours include a dinner by the side of the Animas River catered by the Yellow Carrot using food from the James Ranch.
“We’ve seen a dramatic increase in the number of visitors,” Wheeling said last week. “People are becoming more interested in learning the sources of their food.”
James Ranch isn’t certified organic, but it uses no chemicals, Wheeling said. She said there is too much red tape and expense involved in receiving the certification.
“We prefer to have people see how we operate and have a chance to ask questions, which is what the tours are for,” Wheeling said. “We want visitors to understand our stewardship of the farm.”
At the Durango Olive Oil Co. visitors find products that originate farther from home.
“We import all our oils and balsamics from Morocco, Egypt, Greece, Italy and Spain,” manager Britni Williams said. “We infuse them with flavors and bottle them in Tubac, Arizona, because of the favorable temperatures, and ship them here.”
Among the flavors are herbs, fruits and chipotle chile, Williams said. All the balsamics, including 12- and 18-year-old varieties, originate in Modena, Italy, where balsamics have been made for 600 years, she said.
Any product for sale is available for tasting, Williams said.
Katie O’Hara Barrett makes all her jams, jellies, mustards and barbecue sauces in a 500-square-foot kitchen in the back of her store – O’Hara’s Jams & Jellies.
She also has private-label customers in Colorado and Wyoming and mail-order customers.
O’Hara Barrett personally picks or buys local fruit, including chokecherries. She turns to Western Slope growers when local sources aren’t available.
Jams and jellies come in 15 flavors, including sweet and spicy. The biggest seller is raspberry-jalapeño jam. The overall champion is her cherry-habanero mustard.
“People are thinking more about local food,” O’Hara Barrett said. “We have an awesome loyal following in spite of our location (Colorado Highway 3).”
