A Berger Bite: Agritourism, ecotourism and other forms of tourism

Our friends in the General Assembly are amusing themselves once again with mind-bending legislation.  State representatives have introduced a bill that would amend that portion of the Delaware Code that promotes “agritourism” activities by broadening the definition of that term. 

To that end, they propose to add microbreweries, mazes, rural weddings, skeet shooting and farm-oriented miniature golf, among other activities, to the mix. 

You get the idea. Any vaguely agricultural activity that can be undertaken on a farm of 10 or more acres qualifies for that designation. If this were Nevada, where prostitution is legal, they’d probably include the Mustang Ranch as well, which, as you may surmise, has nothing to do with raising horses or selling Fords.    

The existing Code states that “an activity is an agritourism activity whether or not the participant paid to participate in the activity.” 

So, not every activity makes a profit for its provider, but it does earn them the undying gratitude of the Delaware Tourism Office.  That’s a nice sentiment to keep in mind the next time you go out to the north forty to take your afternoon agritourism nap.

In any case, it does raise the question of how we coastal Delawareans define other forms of tourism. 

Take “ecotourism,” for example. With sites like the Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Milton, the Seaside Nature Center in Cape Henlopen State Park, and the forthcoming Delaware Botanical Gardens at Pepper Creek (outside Dagsboro), we are blessed with numerous locations where one can study and/or enjoy the ecology of the region, and those places would nicely fit the standard definition of ecotourism. 

But what if your understanding of ecotourism took the “eco” prefix as a reference to “economic,” not “ecological”?  What would an economic tour of coastal Delaware entail? 

Would it involve traveling from one ATM to another in search of the elusive $20 bill that some distracted bank customer left behind? 

Could ”economic” be stretched to “economical,” as you crisscross the region in search of a quality restaurant with an entrée priced below $20?  (Please note that this latter amount is not necessarily related to, or dependent upon, your happening upon President Jackson at a local ATM.)      

Or possibly, you just want to travel around the region creating and listening to sonic reverberations in caves and other natural settings, an activity that could be termed “echotourism.”     

Whoa, perhaps we are headed in the wrong direction, at least grammatically speaking.  Maybe instead of looking for differences, we ought to encourage activities that blend agritourism and ecotourism (no matter how defined). 

In that regard, we might learn something from our neighbors to the north.  According to an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Sean and Pola Galie, owners of the Lower Forge microbrewery in Medford, New Jersey, provide “brewer’s grain,” the barley oats and wheat remaining from their beverage mash, to the local farmers to be used as feed for the latter’s chickens, sheep, cows and pigs. 

The animals seem more than eager to consume this special grain mixture, or the “good stuff” as Sean calls it.  He claims there is no alcohol present in brewer’s grain, and therefore the pigs aren’t getting soused (or sowsed).  But I wonder. After all, Sean begrudgingly admits that “there may be a tiny bit of chemistry going on.”  

Regardless, being a microbrewery that encourages farmers to take away the leftover mash would seem to make the Lower Forge Brewery, if it were in Delaware, a good candidate for the “agritourism” designation, as well as a logical ecotourism stop for its sustainable business practices. 

All of which is something microbreweries in our region, especially those that are off-centered, might want to consider. 

In the meantime, until the proposed Code amendments become law, we may have to content ourselves with agritourism activities of a more traditional type, such as picking one’s own fruit, barn parties and camping. 

We will be sustained in those endeavors by the knowledge, as American writer E.B. White put it, that“a good farmer is nothing more nor less than a handy man with a sense of humus.”

Mike Berger is a freelance writer and retired university administrator with a home in Lewes.  Contact him at edadvice@comcast.net.