Rules for ag tourism debated

By B.J. Reyes
Associated Press

Canadian visitor Diana Dines buys bananas from Keaau Village Market vendor Lole Nunu. Kea'au, a Puna community nine miles from Hilo, has many produce farms. Associated Press

There are macadamia nuts, coffee, sugar, honey, flowers and livestock that all support the island's diverse agriculture industry.

"We on Hawai'i have a lot of unique types of farming, and it's kind of interesting to people," said Raley, the owner of Volcano Isle Coffee and Tropicals and one of a growing number of state farmers showing off their products through tourism-related activities.

It's called "ag tourism," and it's seen by many as a natural marriage between traditional farming activities, which helped build the island economies, and the tourism sector that drives the state economy.

While counties can regulate ag tourism, state lawmakers are debating legislation that would define the practice statewide — a move that might persuade more farmers to open up their land to visitors.

"There is hesitation," said Paula Helfrich, president of the Hawaii Island Economic Development Board. "There is a lack of understanding — a sense that agricultural tourism is an excuse to put hotel development on agricultural lands and it unequivocally is not."

House lawmakers have approved an ag-tourism bill; a companion measure has been tabled by Senate committees.

The House bill would allow tourism activities as part of a working farm or farming operation on agriculturally zoned lands, provided that the activity doesn't interfere with surrounding operations. The key stipulation is that tourism-related activities must be secondary to farming.

"It has to be a working farm or agricultural concern that encourages access to visitors," Helfrich said. "It cannot be a bed-and-breakfast with a cow out front. That's not agricultural tourism."

A 2000 study by the Hawai'i Agricultural Statistics Service pegged the value of ag tourism- related activities across the state at $26 million — about one-third of which was generated by direct sales of farm products.

That year, the latest for which figures were available, 126 of the state's 5,500 farms generated money from ag tourism. Another 84 farms had either started or planned to start similar ventures.

Raley added tourism to his operation around 2000. He bought Volcano Isle Tropicals, a flower farm, in 1987 and nine years later began growing coffee. Today, the operation boasts one acre of anthuriums and other flowers and some 1,500 coffee trees across two acres.

While the operation attracts only about a dozen visitors a month, supporters of ag tourism say that's the point — tourism as a secondary element of the farming operation.

Opponents of the ag tourism legislation argue that unscrupulous developers may try to take advantage of the law. For that reason, those people say, precise language is needed.

"Clearly, if someone has a working ag operation, it makes sense for them to be able to augment their income," said Jeff Mikulina, director of the Sierra Club's Hawai'i Chapter. "What we're worried about is further erosion of our land-use laws."

Even if the Senate declines to take up the House bill, supporters say the proposal is likely to return.

"We've been trying to push this for years," Helfrich said. "It's not so much money, it's the political will and recognition of agricultural tourism as a viable part of the tourism industry."