purposes, online reservations, and to run credit card payments for purchases. The Western region was especially concerned about state and local regulations, as well as city and county zoning and permitting. Schmidt et al. (2021a) analyzed the role of women in agritourism entrepreneurship in the United States based on the survey results. Women in agritourism are foremost farmers, and investigating the impact of gender differences is important, as Fremstad and Paul (2020, p.124) point out that "Farming is one of the most unequal professions in the United States today". In 2017, 38% of all farm operations were operated by women (Schmidt et al.,2021b), and, as mentioned above, 58% of the agritourism survey respondents were women. However, similar to previous studies, results show that women in agritourism make significantly less profit than their male counterparts, and they are less likely to assess themselves as being successful at increasing farm revenue. This is a critical issue that would benefit from additional research and outreach. Summaries of survey results and links to publication are online at https://www.uvm.edu/vtrc/agritourism-survey .
DISCUSSION AND APPLICATIONS
The analysis of the national survey of agritourism operators showed that respondents are not driven solely by profit but that non-monetary goals play an important role as well. These findings are similar to other survey studies (Nickerson et al., 2001; Barbieri and Mshenga, 2008; Schilling et al., 2012). We also find that agritourism operators across the United States are not operating on a level playing field. As mentioned in the introduction, there is no uniform definition of agritourism available. Different definitions at the state and municipal levels, in addition to agritourism regulations impact producers' abilities and motivations to offer experiences on their farms. A current USDA NIFA project "Creating an Effective Support System for Small and Medium-Sized Farm Operators to Succeed in Agritourism," is focused on analyzing how these differences in the support system impact agritourism operators across the country. This project also explores Extension programming to help address these inequalities. The results of the survey reported in this article have already been applied to develop Extension programming in several states, including a Northeast multi-state project on agritourism safety and liability and a tool to help producers navigate regulations related to agritourism. These resources can be found online at https://www.uvm.edu/extension/vtagritourism . Although this project was limited to the US, agritourism is a global phenomenon and the survey is now being adapted for use in other countries.
2021 NET Conference Proceedings
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