To do this, new programs are encouraging producers to look at the prospects for tourism ventures – in effect to open their front gates and take a new angle with their farm businesses.

In the south-west, workshops are being conducted by the Australian Regional Tourism Research Centre, Departments of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, and the Long Paddock Tourism on the Land project at Hay.

Long Paddock project officer, Sandra Ireson, said visitors were eager for farm experiences and the workshops in the Murray, Deniliquin, Conargo, Hay and Central Darling shires were designed to help equip farmers to facilitate this.

Workshop topics include explaining what agri-tourism is and how to get started; case studies of rural properties involved in such tourism; how tourism can add value to a conventional agricultural operation; how to make agri-tourism part of the local tourism industry; a warts-and-all look at what is involved, and how to get a proposal approved.

The farm gates have already opened at Mudgee for monthly walks that began in June.

The walks, organised by Mudgee Fine Foods, are designed to both educate and get people back to the grassroots delights of visiting and experiencing a working farm.

Hazelnut producers and Mudgee Fine Foods members, Clem and Vanessa Cox, include their farm in the group’s farm walk program.

They see the walks, held on one Sunday a month following the Mudgee farmers market, as another chance to promote and educate people about the industry.

“We’ll let people see that a hazelnut grows on a tree,” Mrs Cox said. “We can tell them also that you can’t just buy two trees and get a hazelnut – they’re quirky.”

Mrs Cox said while it wasn’t anything new for her business to open its gates, usually it was to growers.

Visitors could visit the grove and processing facility for the first time on Sunday, August 16, she said.

“We find people think it’s fantastic to go to the farm and see where food is produced, and when they taste the locally produced hazelnut, they’re amazed.”