American Farmers Were Paid $1.26 Billion to Let Visitors In, and 23% of Them Took 91% of the Money: Agritourism Statistics 2026 (Income, Growth and Who Earns the Most)

The developers came knocking on a fifth-generation family farm in McDonough, Georgia. The family said no.

Instead, in 2006, Jake Carter's family opened Southern Belle Farm to paying visitors. That first season, nearly 3,000 people came through the gate.

Today the farm reports about 500,000 guests a year, including 40,000 schoolchildren. It employs more than 150 people and needs 16 acres just for parking.

Same land. Same family. A completely different business.

Now zoom out. In 2002, the USDA counted $202 million in income from American farms that charged people to come onto their land. By the 2022 Census of Agriculture, that figure had grown to $1.26 billion.

But here's the part almost nobody tells you. The money is not shared evenly. Not even close. Of the 28,617 U.S. farms that reported agritourism income in 2022, just 23% of them collected 91% of the dollars. Nearly half took in less than $5,000 for the whole year.

So the real question isn't "Is agritourism growing?" It is. The real question is: which side of that line will your farm be on?

I run Bloopy Durians, a durian farm in Malaysia that welcomes paying visitors. Bloomberg featured it in February 2026 in a story on Malaysia's durian tourism. I've spent years studying the numbers behind farms that make visitors pay off. This page puts every number that matters in one place, explains what each one means, and shows you what the top earners do that everyone else doesn't.

What you'll learn on this page

✅ The official U.S. agritourism numbers from 2002 to 2022, and why they undercount the real business

✅ Who earns the most, and the "23% club" that takes 91% of the money

✅ The top 10 states, the counties that win and why small farms are catching up

✅ 7 patterns the research links to higher agritourism income

✅ Demand data for 2025 and 2026, from farm stays to fall festivals

✅ Agritourism numbers from Italy, the UK, Japan, Australia, China and Malaysia

✅ The headwinds, new laws and grants that matter in 2026, and a 5-step plan for your farm

Agritourism Statistics 2026 at a Glance

If you only have a minute, here are the numbers to know. Every figure is sourced at the end of this page.

The headline agritourism numbers for 2026, from the USDA Census of Agriculture, USDA ERS and ISTAT.

Statistic	Number	Source and year
U.S. agritourism income	$1.26 billion	USDA Census, 2022
Growth since 2017, after inflation	+12.4%	USDA ERS, 2022 data
Farms reporting agritourism income	28,617 (about 1.5% of all farms)	USDA Census, 2022
Average income per agritourism farm	$44,004 (gross)	USDA Census, 2022
Share of farms earning $25,000 or more	23%, collecting 91% of the income	USDA Census, 2022
Farms earning under $5,000	47.7%	USDA Census, 2022
Counties with agritourism income	About 57%	USDA ERS, 2022 data
Top state	Texas, $191.8 million	USDA Census, 2022
Italian agritourism farms	26,360 farms, €1.93 billion	ISTAT, 2024
Spending on Australian trips that included agritourism	A$20.3 billion	Tourism Research Australia, 2024

What Counts as Agritourism (and Why the Official Number Is Too Low)

Before we look at the trend, you need to know what the USDA is actually counting, because it changes how you read every number on this page.

Every five years the Census of Agriculture asks farmers how much they earned from "agri-tourism and recreational services." The form gives examples such as farm or winery tours, hayrides, hunting and fishing. It is gross income, counted before taxes and expenses.

Now look at what's left out. If a family pays to pick strawberries, the fruit they carry home is counted as a direct sale, not agritourism. Wine bought after a vineyard tour is the same. In 2022, U.S. farms reported $3.26 billion in food sold directly to consumers, from 116,617 farms. A slice of that money came from visitors standing in a field, but it never shows up in the agritourism total.

A 2024 peer-reviewed study shared by Penn State's Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development noted that the Census counts hunting as agritourism but not pick-your-own berries, which limits how well it captures the sector's true size.

There's one more wrinkle. The definition has shifted over time. The 2002 census reported this line as "recreational services," and 2007 was the first census to report it as agritourism, according to University of Tennessee Extension. In 2017, wineries were taken out of the agritourism line, and vineyard wine sales moved to direct sales. So treat comparisons across those years as a direction, not a precise measurement.

Field-Tested Play: Try This on Your Farm

Keep two separate lines in your books from day one: experience income (tickets, tours, stays, parties) and on-farm sales (fruit, food, drinks, gifts). That's how the USDA splits it, and it's the only way to see which part of your visitor business is really making you money.

New to the idea? Start with Agritourism Examples: 40 Real Farms, What They Offer and What They Charge.

20 Years of Growth: From $202 Million to $1.26 Billion

Here is the full history, census by census.

U.S. agritourism and recreational services income grew more than six times in 20 years in current dollars.

Census year	Farms	Agritourism income	Average per farm
2002	28,016	$202 million	$7,217
2007	23,350	$567 million	$24,276
2012	33,161	$704 million	$21,231
2017	28,575	$949 million	$33,222
2022	28,617	$1.26 billion	$44,004

Three things jump out at me from this table.

1. The money grew more than six times. The number of farms barely moved. In 2002, 28,016 farms reported this income. In 2022, it was 28,617. The industry didn't grow by adding farms. It grew because each farm learned to earn more. The average went from about $7,200 to $44,000.

2. It's real growth, not just inflation. USDA's own Agritourism Resource Manual puts the numbers in 2017 dollars: from $268 million in 2002 to about $1.1 billion in 2022. That's roughly four times larger after inflation. Between 2017 and 2022 alone, USDA's Economic Research Service (ERS) found real growth of 12.4%.

3. It grew while farming itself shrank. The U.S. lost about 142,000 farms between 2017 and 2022, a 6.9% drop to 1.9 million. In 2022, 57% of all farms had negative net cash income. The average producer is now 58.1 years old. Agritourism is one of the few lines on the census that went up while the rest of the farm economy was squeezed.

Agritourism still makes up only 5.7% of U.S. farm-related income, and only about 1.5% of farms report it. That's not a weakness in the data. It's the opportunity. 98 out of 100 farms aren't competing for this money at all.

If crop prices are what's pushing you to look at visitors, read Crop Prices Down, Diesel Up: Why Farms Are Turning to Agritourism to Survive.

Who Earns the Most? Meet the "23% Club"

The average of $44,004 per farm hides the most important fact in the whole census. Look at how the income is actually split.

In 2022, 6,601 farms earning $25,000 or more took 91% of all U.S. agritourism income.

Agritourism income per farm	Farms	Share of farms	Share of all income
$1 to $999	5,364	18.7%	0.2%
$1,000 to $4,999	8,281	28.9%	1.5%
$5,000 to $9,999	3,807	13.3%	2.0%
$10,000 to $24,999	4,564	15.9%	5.5%
$25,000 or more	6,601	23.1%	90.9%

Read that bottom row again. 6,601 farms earned $25,000 or more and averaged about $173,000 each. Together they collected $1.14 billion of the $1.26 billion total.

Meanwhile, 47.7% of agritourism farms took in under $5,000. That's a few birthday parties and a school visit, not a business.

And the gap is widening. In 2017 the top group was 19.4% of farms earning 88.2% of the money. By 2022 it was 23.1% of farms earning 90.9%. More farms crossed the $25,000 line (inflation helped a little), and the top tier took an even bigger share of the money.

Gross income isn't profit, of course. Here's what the profit data shows:

• USDA's farm survey (2021): the average agritourism farm netted $11,110 from agritourism, but about half reported zero net agritourism income.

• Penn State's 2024 national producer survey (2,139 farms): 6.2% grossed more than $1 million from agritourism and 21.2% grossed $100,000 to $1 million. On profit, 11.0% netted more than $100,000, while 32.1% broke even or lost money.

• University of Vermont's 2026 national study (1,065 farms): the typical (median) agritourism profit margin was 24%, compared with 17% for the farm as a whole.

So agritourism isn't a lottery ticket. It's a business, and like any business it rewards the people who run it like one. I broke down the profit side in detail in Is Agritourism Profitable? Real Numbers From U.S. Farms.

Field-Tested Play: Try This on Your Farm

Write down the number $25,000. That's the entry ticket to the group that collects 91% of the money. Divide it by a realistic price per visitor (say $15) and you get about 1,700 paid visits a year, or roughly 33 a week. Ask yourself: what would make 33 people a week drive to my farm?

For a step-by-step path to your first sales, see How Small Farms Can Make Their First $1,000 From Visitors.

The States Where Agritourism Pays the Most

Ten states earned 53% of all U.S. agritourism income in 2022.

Texas is the giant, with $191.8 million, or 15% of the national total. Much of that is likely hunting. A Texas A&M survey found the average whitetail deer lease fee was $2,904 per hunter in 2022 to 2023. Here's the strange part: Texas lost 907 agritourism farms between 2017 and 2022, falling to 4,816, yet its income rose from $162.6 million to $191.8 million. Fewer operators, more money each.

California is the efficiency champion among the big states. Its 1,245 agritourism farms averaged about $79,600 each. The highest averages of all were in Delaware ($114,959, based on only 47 farms) and Hawaii ($101,579), according to Penn State's analysis of the census.

The fastest growers were in the Northeast and Midwest. After inflation, Rhode Island grew 164%, Vermont 127% and Michigan 124% between 2017 and 2022. Michigan went from $21 million to $56.6 million. Ohio jumped from $13.6 million to $32.2 million.

Zoom in further and the pattern gets clearer. USDA ERS found that about 57% of U.S. counties had some agritourism income in 2022, with a median of $161,000 per county. The top 50 counties earned $352 million, more than a quarter of the national total, spread across 23 states.

What did those top counties have in common? ERS linked higher income to three things: more people living nearby, farms that grow grapes, fruit and tree nuts or raise specialty livestock, and natural beauty such as mountains, lakes and coastline.

Every state writes its own rules for visitors, so check yours in Agritourism Laws by State: The 50-State Guide.

Small Farms Are Closing the Gap

If you're on a few acres, this is the most encouraging section in the census.

• Farms under 10 acres grew their agritourism income 137% between 2017 and 2022, to $89 million. Their average rose 105% to $27,010.

• Farms of 10 to 49.9 acres are now the biggest group: 6,686 operations earning $226.7 million, up 49.6%.

• Farms of 219 acres or less earned 54.3% of all agritourism income.

• Farms of 2,000 acres or more earned $251.7 million, about 20% of the total, much of it likely from hunting and ranch recreation.

Size of the land isn't what decides this. What decides it is whether you give people a reason to come, and a reason to come back.

Look at Dull's Tree Farm in Thorntown, Indiana. The family planted their first pumpkins in 2014. Within about five years, their 20-day fall season was earning more than their Christmas tree season. In 2019 they quit row crops altogether. They now host about 80,000 visitors a year with 45 activities, and they've built an email list of 18,000 people.

A short fall season can outearn a whole year of commodity crops. Illustrative photo of a pumpkin patch hayride in Arkansas. Photo: Rberchie, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Field-Tested Play: Try This on Your Farm

Don't ask "how much land do I have?" Ask "what is my one experience people can't get anywhere else?" A sunflower walk, a durian tasting, an early-morning animal feeding, a sunset dinner in the orchard. Start with one and price it properly.

See How Much Land Do You Really Need for Agritourism? and The Signature Experience Formula.

What the Top Earners Do Differently: 7 Patterns in the Research

Why does one farm make $173,000 while the farm down the road makes $1,700? The research doesn't give a single answer, but the same seven patterns show up again and again.

Pattern 1: They're close to people, or they make the trip worth it

ERS found that farms in remote areas are more likely to try agritourism, but farms near cities earn more from it. In Penn State's 2024 survey, 91.3% of the operations that gave a location were in or next to a metro county. A Virginia study found that the longer the drive to an interstate, the lower the odds of being highly profitable.

If you're far from town, you need a bigger reason to visit, and a reason to stay the night. Which brings us to Pattern 4.

Pattern 2: They sell fruit, vines or animals as an experience

ERS linked the highest-earning counties to grapes, fruit, tree nuts and specialty livestock. These are things people love to touch, taste and photograph. A wheat field is beautiful. An apple you picked yourself is a memory.

Pattern 3: They treat it as the main business, not a hobby

The University of Vermont's 2026 national study, which surveyed 1,065 agritourism farms, found agritourism made up a median 36% of farm revenue, but on average 72% of farm profit. In other words, for many farms the visitor business is the part that actually pays the bills. An earlier Vermont survey linked higher profits to treating revenue as a goal and to years of experience.

Pattern 4: They keep visitors overnight

In the same 2026 study, farms offering overnight stays had about five times higher odds of drawing more out-of-town visitors. People who sleep on your farm also eat, shop and come back. Airbnb says its typical farm host earned about $8,000 in 2025, and farm hosts together earned nearly $120 million.

Overnight stays turn a day trip into a weekend. Illustrative photo of farm glamping at Springfield Farm, Marwood, England. Photo: Lewis Clarke, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Ready to try it? Start with How to Start a Farm Stay on Your Farm and avoid the pricing trap in Why Most Farm Stays Are Undercharging.

Pattern 5: They charge for the experience, not the pound

This is the one that changes how farmers think. Look at apples.

The same apple can earn 3½ to 8 times more when the customer picks it. Grower prices are USDA NASS 2024 averages; U-pick prices were posted by New York orchards in 2025.

In 2024, U.S. growers received an average of about 35 cents a pound for fresh-market apples and less than 10 cents for processing apples. In 2025, New York pick-your-own orchards posted prices from $1.25 to $2.90 a pound. The customer does the picking, pays you more and thanks you for it.

Pumpkins tell the same story. Pennsylvania growers got about 27 cents a pound in 2025. Walk into any pumpkin patch in October and see what a single carving pumpkin sells for.

Pick-your-own turns a low-priced commodity into a paid experience. Illustrative photo of an apple picking day at Great Woodend Farm orchards, England. Photo: Roger Davies, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Field-Tested Play: Try This on Your Farm

Take your main crop and write two prices side by side: what the buyer pays you per pound or per kilo, and what a visitor would pay to pick, taste or learn about it on your farm. If the second number isn't at least three times the first, your experience isn't packaged yet.

Learn how in The Experience Premium: How to Price Your Farm for Profit and Upsells That Double Your Agritourism Revenue.

Pattern 6: They're easy to find online

Penn State researchers found that counties whose internet speeds in 2012 were just 1 Mbps above the national average had about 5% more agritourism farms by 2017, though the link didn't hold in rural counties. In the Vermont study, 87% of farms used social media and 85% relied on word of mouth. Yet 43% collected no visitor data at all. If you know where your visitors come from, you're already ahead of nearly half the field.

Two of my most-read guides cover this: How to Get Found on Google Maps and How Reviews Turn Small Farms Into Tourist Destinations.

Pattern 7: They stay in the game longer

A study of Austrian farms published in 2025 found that offering agritourism raised a farm's chance of surviving 11 years by 10.3 percentage points. Agritourism isn't just extra income. It's insurance against the bad years in your main crop.

Demand in 2025 and 2026: Your Customers Are Already Looking

Supply is only half the story. Here's what the customer side looks like right now.

Six signs that visitor demand for farms is still rising in 2026.

• Most households take part. White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group's consumer surveys found 76% of U.S. households did at least one agritourism activity in 2023, 81% in 2024 and 89% in 2025. In 2025, 59% went to a fall festival and 44% picked apples. (Single-activity numbers swing from year to year, so treat these as a guide.)

• The big fall farms are pulling away. Among farms selling tickets through the TicketSpice platform, the 50 biggest fall-festival farms grew pre-sold ticket sales 22% on average in 2025. The next 50 grew just 3%.

• Travelers want to sleep on farms. Vrbo's 2026 trend report found 84% of travelers were interested in staying on or near a farm, and farm mentions in guest reviews were up 300%.

• Searches are climbing. Airbnb reported farm-stay searches up 61% in the first half of 2026 compared with a year earlier.

• Listings are booming. Farm-stay listings on U.S. short-term rental sites grew 77% in five years, about twice as fast as all listings, according to AirDNA data reported by Reuters.

• Big companies are buying in. On September 30, 2026, Choice Hotels agreed to buy Harvest Hosts, a network of more than 11,200 wineries, farms and other hosts, for about $130 million.

Real farms are riding this wave. Fergusons Family of Farms in Minnesota and Wisconsin says its attendance grew 300% over the past decade, and it drew more than 300,000 visitors across four sites in 2024. At two of its farms, an $18 ticket includes unlimited return visits all season. In Tennessee, the seventh-generation Donnell Century Farm grew corn, soybeans and cotton until 2019. Today it leases its crop ground to another farmer and runs 30 attractions, including a 100,000-tulip planting. As Andrew Donnell told DTN, "None of the commodities are working well when I put a pencil to it."

And for U.S. farm stays specifically, Airbnb and American Farmland Trust are offering grants of up to $10,000. Here's how to prepare: Airbnb's "Farm to Stay" Grant: How to Apply.

About 800 farms in North America run corn mazes, according to White Hutchinson. Illustrative photo of the corn maze at Richardson Farm, Illinois. Photo: Two Branches, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Agritourism Around the World: From Italy to Malaysia

Agritourism isn't an American idea. In some countries it's been law for decades. Here's where the world stands, using the most recent official data I could find.

Agritourism is big business on every continent. Sources are listed at the end of this page.

Country	Latest figure	Source and year
Italy	26,360 agriturismi, 4.7 million guests, €1.93 billion in value	ISTAT, 2024
Australia	18.5 million trips with agritourism, A$20.3 billion spent	Tourism Research Australia, 2024
Japan	8.68 million farm-stay overnight stays	Ministry of Agriculture, FY2024
Taiwan	29.2 million farm and rural leisure visits, NT$10.9 billion	Ministry of Agriculture, 2024
China	¥950 billion leisure agriculture revenue	Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, 2025
England	72% of farms diversified; tourism stays average £8,700	Defra, 2024/25
Austria	About 1 in 30 tourist nights spent on a farm	Ministry evaluation, 2019
Canada (Ontario)	$633 million economic output	Agritourism Ontario study, 2026
Malaysia	977,666 homestay visitors, RM62.4 million income	MOTAC, 2025

Italy: the world's agritourism benchmark

Italy passed its first national agriturismo law in 1985 and replaced it with a new framework law in 2006. The rule is simple: farming must stay the main activity. That rule built an industry. ISTAT counted 14,017 agriturismi in 2004 and 26,360 in 2024. They hosted 4.7 million guests, more than half from abroad, for 17.1 million nights. Their economic value reached about €1.93 billion, roughly €73,400 per farm. One in three is run by a woman, and Tuscany alone has 22% of them.

Two countries that built agritourism on purpose. Italy nearly doubled its farm accommodations in 20 years. Japan more than quadrupled farm-stay nights in seven.

Italy's agriturismo law requires farming to stay the main activity. Illustrative photo of a farmhouse in the Val d'Orcia, Tuscany. Photo: Enrico Pighetti, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

For a real Tuscan example with the numbers, read my case study How Fattoria di Maiano Built a €3 Million Agritourism Estate.

Japan, Taiwan, China and South Korea: governments are pushing hard

Japan's farm-stay program ("nouhaku") recorded 8.68 million overnight stays in fiscal 2024, up from 1.9 million in fiscal 2017. Foreign guest-nights nearly doubled in one year, to 748,000. Japan beat its old target of 7 million two years early and has now set a new goal of 12 million by fiscal 2029.

Taiwan's agricultural and rural leisure tourism drew about 29.2 million visits in 2024 and produced NT$10.86 billion. China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs put leisure agriculture revenue at about ¥950 billion in 2025. South Korea is the cautionary tale: its rural experience villages drew 9.07 million visitors in 2024, still below the 12.86 million of 2019. Demand doesn't come back by itself after a shock.

Australia, the UK and Europe: the visitor spends more

Tourism Research Australia counted 18.5 million trips that included agritourism in 2024, 6% of all trips, and travelers spent A$20.3 billion on those trips. Domestic agritourists spent about A$863 per trip, compared with A$462 for the average traveler. About three in four of those trips went to regional Australia. More in Agritourism in Australia.

In England, Defra reports that 72% of farm businesses had diversified in 2024/25, and diversification brought in an average £22,400, about 31% of farm business income. Tourist accommodation and catering averaged £8,700. In Austria, about one in every 30 tourist nights is spent on a farm, and member farms of the national farm-holiday group earn just over 40% of their income from guests. For a British example, see 12 Farmer Copleys Lessons.

Malaysia and Southeast Asia: durian trails and homestays

Here at home in Malaysia, Bloomberg reported a record 42.2 million tourist arrivals in 2025, with a government target of 47 million for 2026. Agritourism is part of that push. The Ministry of Tourism's homestay program hosted 977,666 visitors in 2025, earning RM62.4 million for 3,514 operators. Tourism Malaysia's durian tour packages sold RM1.6 million in 2023, up from just RM107,000 the year before.

That's the story Bloomberg told in February 2026: Malaysia betting on durian trails and wildlife to stretch its tourism boom, with our farm, Bloopy Durians, as one of the examples. When I started welcoming visitors, I learned the same lesson as Southern Belle Farm: the fruit is the reason people come, but the experience is what they pay for.

Durian tourism is one of Malaysia's fastest-growing agritourism niches. Illustrative photo of durians at a fruit market in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. Photo: Suyash Dwivedi, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

In the Philippines, the Farm Tourism Development Act of 2016 created a national accreditation system for farm tourism sites. I've collected more regional examples in Agritourism in South East Asia and Cameron Highlands Flora Park.

Farm tourism is now national policy in the Philippines. Tourists harvesting strawberries in La Trinidad, Benguet, 2018. Photo: Joey Razon, Philippine News Agency, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

A warning about "global agritourism market size" reports

You'll see headlines that the global agritourism market is worth $8 billion, $33 billion or $81 billion. All of these come from commercial market-research firms (Grand View Research, Allied Market Research, IMARC and others), and they disagree by about ten times. They do roughly agree that growth runs at about 11% to 13% a year. Use them as a sign of direction, not as a fact you can bank on. For hard numbers, stick to government statistics like the ones on this page.

The Headwinds: What Could Hurt Agritourism in 2026

I'd be doing you a disservice if I only showed you the good news. Here's what's pushing against farms right now.

The top challenges reported by 1,065 U.S. agritourism farms in the University of Vermont's 2026 national study.

• The farm economy is under pressure. USDA ERS forecasts 2026 net farm income at $158.4 billion, down 2.6% (5.5% after inflation). USDA also forecasts 2026 production expenses at $492.8 billion, with fuel and oil up 28.8%, according to an American Farm Bureau Federation analysis.

• Labor and time are the biggest headaches. In the Vermont study, 86% of farms called labor a challenge and 84% struggled with time management.

• Insurance and liability. 81% named liability and 80% named insurance cost or availability as a challenge. See Agritourism Insurance: What It Covers and What It Costs.

• Weather is getting rougher. A late-April 2026 freeze could cost Pennsylvania's specialty crop industry $150 million to $200 million, based on early state Department of Agriculture estimates cited by Penn State Extension. In Colorado, drought forced Sonrise Farm to cancel its 2026 pumpkin patch.

• Animal disease. California banned poultry and dairy cow exhibits at fairs in January 2025 because of bird flu.

• Price-sensitive families. White Hutchinson found that the lowest-income 40% of households cut their spending on admissions to places like theme parks, family entertainment centers and museums by 37% after inflation between 2019 and 2023.

The farms handling this best are adjusting, not quitting. Conner's A-Maize-ing Acres in Florida raised admission by $3 to $22.95 in 2026, its first increase in six years, to cover rising costs, with diesel at $5 to $6 a gallon. It still expects around 20,000 visitors this fall.

Field-Tested Play: Try This on Your Farm

Build a "bad year" plan before you need it. Have at least one experience that doesn't depend on your main crop: a farm stay, an animal encounter, a workshop or an indoor tasting. When frost or drought hits the fields, the visitor business keeps paying.

See How to Prepare for Weather-Related Risks in Agritourism.

Laws, Grants and Policy: What Changed in 2025 and 2026

Lawmakers have noticed the growth. Here are the changes that matter most for U.S. farms:

• Liability laws keep spreading. The National Agricultural Law Center says about 40 states have some kind of agritourism statute. Connecticut added liability protection effective October 1, 2025, and Wyoming added agritourism to its Recreation Safety Act in July 2025.

• Zoning is loosening in some states. Oregon's HB 4153, signed in April 2026, created a new county-approved "farm store" use that can include crop mazes and farm-to-table meals. Washington's HB 1261 (2025) lets farms keep open-space tax status if agritourism uses less than 20% of the land. Virginia ordered a review of building rules for temporary agritourism tents, effective July 2026.

• Washington is paying attention. The bipartisan AGRITOURISM Act (H.R. 3470, May 2025) would create an Office of Agritourism at USDA, and a Senate bill (S. 3392, December 2025) would instead name a USDA Agritourism Advisor. Both were still in committee at the time of writing.

• Grants are available. USDA awarded $26.5 million in Value-Added Producer Grants to 194 projects in September 2026, and the program offers planning grants of up to $50,000 and working capital grants of up to $200,000. USDA also published a free Agritourism Resource Manual in 2025.

Signs and waivers matter more than most farmers think. Read Do Liability Waivers Protect Your Farm? before your next season.

What These Numbers Mean for Your Farm: A 5-Step Plan

Statistics are only worth something if they change what you do on Monday morning. Here's how I'd turn this data into action.

1. Pick your "reason to visit." The top-earning counties sell fruit, vines, animals and scenery. Choose the one experience on your farm that people would photograph and talk about.

2. Price the experience, not the produce. Use the apple math: aim for at least three times what a wholesale buyer pays you.

3. Give people a reason to stay or return. Overnight stays bring out-of-town guests. Season passes and festivals bring families back again and again.

4. Get found where people search. Set up your Google Business Profile, ask every happy visitor for a review and post what's in season every week.

5. Track your numbers from the first visitor. Count visits, revenue per visitor and where people came from. Nearly half of farms don't, and you can't grow what you don't measure.

A Christmas tree farm, a pumpkin patch or a durian orchard: every crop can become a reason to visit. A Christmas tree farm in Iowa. Photo: public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Want a calendar of ideas you can run all year? Grab 30 Farm Event Ideas by Season, With Real Ticket Prices, then study how real farms did it in my case studies of Hunt Club Farm and Applecrest Farm Orchards.

What to Watch Next: 2027 and Beyond

• The 2027 Census of Agriculture is coming. USDA's statistics agency published its Federal Register notices for the 2027 census in January and May 2026. If it follows the 2022 timetable (results released in February 2024), new agritourism numbers should arrive around early 2029.

• Japan's 12 million farm-stay target for fiscal 2029 will show how far government support can push demand.

• Farm stays are going mainstream. With Choice Hotels buying Harvest Hosts and Airbnb funding farm hosts, expect more big travel brands to court farmers.

• Italy keeps growing. The number of agriturismi rose again in 2024, and the economic value has grown about 5.3% a year on average over the past decade.

My prediction: the next census will show the "23% club" getting bigger, and the farms that join it will be the ones that started treating visitors as a real business today.

How to cite this page

Journalists, students and researchers are welcome to use and link to this data. Please cite it as: Loke, S. (2026, October 11). Agritourism Statistics 2026: Income, Growth and Who Earns the Most. AgritourismSuccess.com. https://www.agritourismsuccess.com/post/agritourism-statistics

Frequently Asked Questions About Agritourism Statistics

How much money does agritourism make in the U.S.?

According to the USDA's 2022 Census of Agriculture, U.S. farms earned $1.26 billion from agritourism and recreational services in 2022, up from $949 million in 2017. That figure leaves out pick-your-own produce and other on-farm food sales, which are counted as direct sales, so the full visitor economy is larger.

How much does the average agritourism farm make?

The 28,617 farms that reported agritourism income in 2022 averaged $44,004 each in gross receipts. The average hides a big split: farms earning $25,000 or more averaged about $173,000, while 47.7% of agritourism farms earned under $5,000.

Which state makes the most from agritourism?

Texas, with $191.8 million in 2022, about 15% of the U.S. total, much of it likely from hunting. California ($99.1 million), Colorado ($66.7 million), Michigan ($56.6 million) and New York ($55.5 million) complete the top five.

Is agritourism growing?

Yes. U.S. agritourism income grew more than six times between 2002 and 2022 in current dollars and about four times after inflation, according to USDA. Between 2017 and 2022 it grew 12.4% after inflation. Consumer surveys and booking data from 2025 and 2026 show demand for farm visits and farm stays still rising.

What percentage of farms offer agritourism?

About 1.5% of U.S. farms reported agritourism income in the 2022 Census. USDA's farm survey put the share at nearly 3% in 2021. In England, 72% of farm businesses had some kind of diversified activity in 2024/25, with tourism among them.

How big is the global agritourism market?

There is no official global figure. Commercial market-research firms estimate anywhere from about US$8 billion to US$81 billion, with growth of roughly 11% to 13% a year. Government data is more reliable: Italy's agriturismi produced €1.93 billion in 2024 and travelers spent A$20.3 billion on trips in Australia that included agritourism.

Is agritourism profitable?

It can be. The University of Vermont's 2026 national study found a median agritourism profit margin of 24%, compared with 17% for the whole farm, and agritourism averaged 72% of participating farms' profit. But about a third of farms in Penn State's 2024 survey broke even or lost money, so planning and pricing matter.

Your Next Step: Find Out Where Your Farm Stands

Twenty years of data say the same thing. Agritourism money is real, it's growing, and it flows to the farms that treat visitors as a business. The 23% club isn't closed. More farms join it every census.

The question is how fast you can get there without wasting money on the wrong idea.

Step 1: Take the free Farm Readiness Quiz. In a few minutes you'll see which parts of your farm are ready for visitors and what to fix first.

Step 2: Download the free ebook, The 21-Point Agritourism Blueprint. It's the step-by-step checklist for planning, pricing and opening your farm to paying visitors.

P.S. Remember Southern Belle Farm: nearly 3,000 visitors in its first season, about 500,000 a year now. Every farm in the top 23% started with a first season too. Take the quiz now and find out what yours could look like.

Sources

Figures on this page come from these sources. Where I calculated a share or an average from published tables, I say so in the text.

• USDA NASS, 2022 Census of Agriculture, U.S. Table 7: Income From Farm-Related Sources (2022 and 2017)

• USDA NASS, 2022 Census of Agriculture, State Table 6: Income From Farm-Related Sources by State

• USDA NASS, 2017 Census of Agriculture, U.S. Table 7 (2017 and 2012)

• USDA NASS, 2007 Census of Agriculture, U.S. Table 6 (2007 and 2002)

• USDA NASS, 2012 Census of Agriculture, U.S. Table 6

• University of Tennessee Extension, agritourism in the 2007 Census of Agriculture (SP718)

• USDA NASS, 2022 Census of Agriculture, Appendix B: General Explanation and Census Report Form

• USDA NASS, 2022 Census of Agriculture, U.S. Table 2 (food sold directly to consumers)

• USDA NASS, 2022 Census of Agriculture, U.S. Table 5 (net cash farm income)

• USDA NASS, news release on the 2022 Census of Agriculture (February 13, 2024)

• USDA NASS, 2022 Census of Agriculture Highlights: Farm Producers

• USDA ERS, Chart of Note: The majority of U.S. counties generate some agritourism income (December 5, 2024)

• USDA ERS, Amber Waves: Agritourism Allows Farms to Diversify and Has Potential Benefits for Rural Communities (2019)

• USDA ERS, America's Farms and Ranches at a Glance: 2022 Edition (EIB-247)

• USDA, Agritourism Resource Manual (2025)

• Penn State NERCRD, Agritourism in the 2022 Census of Agriculture, Data Brief 2024-1

• Penn State NERCRD, Insights and Oversights Behind the Data on Agritourism and Direct Sales (Hollas et al., 2024)

• Penn State NERCRD, 2024 National Agritourism Producer Survey (2025)

• Penn State NERCRD, High-speed internet linked to more farms offering agritourism (2024)

• University of Vermont, Agritourism Across the United States (2026)

• University of Vermont, Agritourism Revenue and Profitability in the U.S. (2019 to 2020 survey)

• Lucha et al., Agricultural and Resource Economics Review (2016), agritourism profitability in Virginia

• Firgo and Pennerstorfer, agritourism and farm survival in Austria

• Texas A&M Natural Resources Institute, Economic Values of White-tailed Deer in Texas (2023)

• USDA NASS, Noncitrus Fruits and Nuts 2024 Summary (apple prices)

• Spectrum News, U-pick apple orchards around New York State (September 2025)

• USDA ERS, Pumpkins: Background and Statistics (2026)

• White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group, 2023 agritourism consumer survey

• White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group, 2024 agritourism consumer survey

• White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group, 2025 agritourism consumer survey

• White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group, 2025 U-pick participation

• White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group, fall festival ticket sales (June 2026)

• Farm Progress, Looking for another farm revenue stream? Invite guests (October 2026)

• Fox News, Farmers offering on-site vacation rentals (September 2026)

• Reuters via Insurance Journal, farm stays and Airbnb (February 2025)

• Associated Press via Times Leader, farm stays surging in 2026 (Vrbo trend report)

• Hotel Online, Choice Hotels to acquire Harvest Hosts (September 2026)

• DTN/Progressive Farmer, Farming fresh money (Southern Belle Farm, Donnell Century Farm, 2026)

• Albany Herald, UGA alum transforms fifth-generation farm into tourist destination (2024)

• DTN/Progressive Farmer, Dull's Tree Farm (January 2026)

• Business Wire, Fergusons Family of Farms (August 2026)

• Business Wire, Ferguson's Eau Claire turns 15 (August 2025)

• Action News Jax, Conner's A-Maize-ing Acres rising costs (September 2026)

• ISTAT, Le aziende agrituristiche in Italia, anno 2024 (March 2026)

• ISTAT, Le aziende agrituristiche in Italia, 2009 report (2004 to 2009 data)

• ISTAT, Agritourism farms in Italy, year 2014

• Italy's national agriturismo law, Law 96 of 2006

• Japan Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, farm-stay (nouhaku) survey results

• Japan Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, FY2024 White Paper section on farm stays

• Taiwan Ministry of Agriculture, leisure agriculture 2024

• Xinhua, China leisure agriculture revenue 2025 (September 2026)

• CBS Nocut News, South Korea rural experience villages (November 2025)

• Tourism Research Australia, Agritourism Report (2024 data)

• Defra, Farm Accounts in England, Chapter 5: Diversification (2024/25)

• Defra, Farm Accounts in England, Chapter 2: Key results (2024/25)

• Austrian Ministry of Agriculture, evaluation of Urlaub am Bauernhof (2019 data)

• Farmtario, Ontario agritourism study highlights $633M economic impact (March 2026)

• Bloomberg, Malaysia Bets on Durian Trails, Wildlife to Extend Tourism Boom (February 2026)

• Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture Malaysia, Homestay Programme statistics (December 2025)

• Malay Mail, Tourism Malaysia durian tourism packages (June 2024)

• Republic Act 10816, Farm Tourism Development Act of 2016 (Philippines)

• Grand View Research, Agritourism Market report (commercial estimate)

• Allied Market Research, Agritourism Market report (commercial estimate)

• IMARC Group, Agritourism Market report (commercial estimate)

• USDA ERS, Highlights From the Farm Income Forecast (September 2026)

• American Farm Bureau Federation, Market Intel analysis of USDA's 2026 farm income and cost forecast

• Penn State Extension, The April freeze and Pennsylvania agritourism (2026), citing Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture estimates

• Denver7, Drought causes northern Colorado farm to cancel its pumpkin patch (June 2026)

• California Department of Food and Agriculture, fairs circular on bird flu (January 2025)

• National Agricultural Law Center, agritourism and equine liability webinar (2024)

• Farm Credit East, Agritourism liability limitations (October 2025)

• Wyoming SF 108 (2025)

• Cascadia Daily News, Washington HB 1261 (April 2025)

• Davis Wright Tremaine, Oregon farm store law HB 4153 (April 2026)

• Virginia HB 735 (2026)

• Congress.gov, H.R. 3470, AGRITOURISM Act (2025)

• Office of Senator Ron Wyden, Wyden and Budd introduce agritourism bill (December 2025)

• Feedstuffs, USDA awards $26.5M in Value-Added Producer Grants (September 2026)

• USDA Rural Development, Value-Added Producer Grants program page

• Federal Register, 2027 Census of Agriculture notice (January 14, 2026)

• Federal Register, 2027 Census of Agriculture notice (May 29, 2026)

Photo Credits

Photos are illustrative and come from Wikimedia Commons under the licenses shown. Charts and infographics were made for this page by AgritourismSuccess.com.

• Fall-festival hayride: "FL Hayride" by Virginia State Parks staff, CC BY 2.0

• Pumpkin patch hayride: "Pumpkin Patch in Arkansas" by Rberchie, CC BY-SA 4.0

• Farm glamping: "Marwood: Springfield Farm Glamping" by Lewis Clarke, CC BY-SA 2.0

• Apple picking: "Apple picking day at Great Woodend Farm orchards" by Roger Davies, CC BY-SA 2.0

• Corn maze: "World's biggest corn maze" by Two Branches, CC BY 2.0

• Val d'Orcia farmhouse: "Live in Val d'Orcia" by Enrico Pighetti, CC BY 2.0

• Durians: "Durian on sale at fruits market, Jalan, Kota Kinabalu" by Suyash Dwivedi, CC BY-SA 4.0

• Strawberry picking: "Strawberry Picking La Trinidad 2018" by Joey Razon, Philippine News Agency, public domain

• Christmas tree farm: "Christmas tree farm IA", public domain

Disclaimer

This page summarizes public statistics for educational purposes. Figures are rounded, and some shares and averages were calculated from published USDA tables. Census definitions changed between 2002, 2007 and 2017, so compare those years with care. Market-research estimates are commercial forecasts, not official data. Nothing here is legal, tax, insurance or financial advice. Check your state or country's rules before opening your farm to visitors.