Visitors keen to see where their food comes from and meet those who produce it

Tasmanian farms are jumping on board the booming agritourism sector as the desire to know where the food we eat comes from continues to grow.

Poultry farmer John Sattler will begin welcoming visitors to his Pure Foods farm outside Longford. Picture: CHRISTOPHER TESTA

A FORMER food curator is encouraging Tasmanian farmers to open their gates to visitors to generate extra revenue and ensure the state is part of what is now Australia’s fastest-growing tourism sector.

Egg producers, tomato growers and sea salt processors have already jumped onboard and the visitors who tour the working farms are giving rave reviews.

Anna Yip, the food curator at the Taste of Tasmania in 2017-18, founded Off the Table in February.

Already, a handful of local farms have joined to be part of a tourism sector now worth over $10 billion in Australia each year.

Tasmania’s biggest egg producer Pure Foods is among the latest ventures to get involved.

The farm’s egg cartons now have a code inside you can scan to book a tour and see how they operate and learn how eggs can be incorporated in a variety of foods.

“There has been a groundswell of interest from consumers to see where their food comes from and to meet those who produce it. But there have been limited opportunities to do that until now,” Ms Yip said.

“They are hungry to know things like what is the value of free range and why is grass-fed better, that kind of thing.”

The seasonal ticketed tours — the farms are working businesses and visitors cannot turn up unannounced — can be booked through Off the Table.

“What we provide is a mechanism for food brands to let the people who buy their products really get to know them and their business,” Ms Yip said.

In January, figures from Tourism Research Australia showed 413,000 tourists sought out a farm gate experience nationally in 2018, up 13 per cent on the year before.

The State Government has also launched a draft agritourism strategy with the aim of building agritourism as part of a broader goal to grow agriculture tenfold to become a $10 billion-a-year industry in Tasmania by 2050.