A-Z Farm's agritourism enterprise starts with education
by Jane Metcalf
Correspondent
OREGON
For Ray and Alice Antoniewicz, everything clicked when they heard a conference speaker talk about agritourism, a relatively new concept in 1998. The speaker talked about the desirability of a good location, of being close to a university and a city with a young, vital population.
"What we had matched up with everything he was saying," Alice says. On top of that, Ray was in the process retiring from his position as University of Wisconsin-Extension horse specialist, plus the Antoniewiczes already were accustomed to having lots of their grown children's friends on the farm to see their lambs in the spring. "The barn was always full... We thought it was worth giving it a try," She says of their venture into agritourism. Ten years later, the Antoniewiczes are opening their doors once again not only to the general public to watch shearing, lambs and lambing, but they're also welcoming other farm marketers from across the country. The North American Farm Direct Marketing Association is holding its annual convention in Wisconsin Dells on Feb. 18-20, and the conference is preceded by three days of bus tours to farms throughout Wisconsin |
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| AGRITOURISM AND EDUCATION -- Many people would call Ray and Alice Antoniewiczes' efforts agritourism, while Ray and Alice view it, first and foremost, as ag education. (Photo by Jane Metcalf) |
What the farm marketers will see is exactly what the general public sees: the normal day-to-day operations of a working sheep farm. "The thing is that we don't do anything that we didn't do before the people started coming. And it fits the general public as well, so it works well."
A-Z Farm will host Sheep Shearing for Spectators from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 16, at their 11,0000-square-foot open-span barn. Admission is $2, with children aged 2 and under admitted for free. Visitors will see ewes being sheared and watch the skirting of wool fleeces. Sheep producers and fiber enthusiasts will demonstrate spinning, knitting and weaving, so visitors can learn about different wool types and colors, how to care for wool and how it is transformed into various articles. Several vendors will offer sheep- and wool-related supplies and products. This year they will show a DVD of a lamb birth.
"People can see it (wool) from the beginning to the end, and we want people to see what a great product wool is," Alice notes.
A-Z Farm also invites the public to its lambing barn on three Sundays – March 16, 23, and 30 – from 10 a.m. until 4.p.m./ Admission is $3.50, with children aged 2 and u nder admitted for free. Visitors will see lambs nursing, bouncing around their mothers and learn about lambs. They might even witness the birth of a lamb. There will be chicks, bunnies and other animals to see and touch. Again, several vendors will offer sheep- and wool-related supplies and products. A photographer will be on hand to take family portraits. New this year, they will show DVDs of both lamb birth and shearing.
The Antoniewiczes also offer farm tours to groups of adults and children from March 10 through the end of June.
As much as most people would label what the Antoniewiczes do as agritourism, Ray and Alice stress what they do, first and foremost, is education.
"We never started it as an agritourism thing," Alice explains. "Our whole thing from the get go was ag education, but the agritourism fits into it...If people come here and want to learn something, they can learn something."
With much of Ray's career focusing on education and youth programming and Alice, with pediatrics training, have served as a hospital supervisor at Madison's St. Mary's Hospital, they both have always worked with the public. They both saw a need for better education of the public about agriculture.
"Education of the public is so poor when it comes to where their food comes from and how things are done on the farm and why things are done," Alice explains.
The Antoniewiczes' agritourism efforts mesh well with their direct marketing enterprise. They sell ewe lambs for breeding stock, crossbred rams for commercial producers and occasionally sell mature producing ewes and mature rams. They sell feeder lambs at about 70 pounds in mid-July, and they sell pasture-raised half or who freezer lambs that are grown without hormones or growth stimulants. They sell individual lamb cuts and brats, plus they sell mutton to an ethnic clientele.
They also market fleeces, wool blankets and pelts, as well as pasture-raised chickens, eggs, rabbit meat and pet bunnies.
The Antoniewiczes bought their 37-acre farm on the northeaster side of Oregon 41 years ago, viewing it as a good spot to raise children and some of their own food products. They have been living up the road, and the farm's previous owner allowed them to keep a horse in one of the six stalls he had in the barn.
"It was everything we didn't want," Alice recalls of the farm. "We wanted something farther out. We wanted a terrain that was more rugged than this flat ground. The house was falling down, and the farm buildings were on their way to the graveyard...but the price was reasonable."
After buying the farm, they remodeled the house and tore down all the farm buildings except the six horse stall barn, beginning what has become an evolution of their farming enterprise. The built a riding arena – now used for their agritourism enterprise – and used it to train their horses. They raised, showed and marketed half-Arab Pintos, and traveled to regional and national shows. They sold horses to buyers in 13 states, and some of the horses they sold became national champions.
As their children grew older, the travel and demands of the horse business no longer fit the needs of the family, so they expanded their sheep flock and let go of the horse business by attrition. They'd had the chance to buy a couple of small flocks. The bought a small 4-H Hampshire flock, and later, some Suffolks. As with the horses, they traveled to regional and national shows and sales, and as their children continued to grow that lifestyle no longer worked for the family,.
"The purebred show thing was talking us away from the family," Alice recalls.
That's when the Antoniewiczes started to focus on commercial sheep production, and their flock now consists of about 100 eyes on an intensive grazing management system.
"When we got to the endpoint of the horses, we looked at what we had in the sheep, and we found the Targhee, Dorset and Suffolk crosses were doing well for us.
Ray and Alice continue to see an evolution of their farming business.
"What we'd really like to see is enough educational or production programs here for our kids to run things year-round," ray says. "Eventually, we'd like to see each of them have their own niche."
Their children, Sarah of Brooklyn and Troy and his wife, Phyllis, of Stoughton, are most involved in helping with the family's agritourism efforts. Troy already has his own chicken enterprise that meshes well with that of his parents'. Ray and Alice's other sons, Todd and Tony, both have demanding careers as firefighters, but help as much with the shearing and lambing days as they're able.
As A-Z Farm continues to evolve, both Ray and Alice believe education of the general public will continue to be an important focus.
"I think we both get a lot of satisfaction in working with the public and showing them a different way of life," Alice says. "When our kids were teenagers, we took them out west and got them involved with families out there so they would learn that there's a different way of life and different lifestyle than what they know. We wanted them to learn that everyone comes with a different agenda and to learn that the experiences they have make them the way the are."
They approach their agritourism and educational efforts with the same mindset.
"We try to let them (visitors) know that cities are great, but the country is also great," Alice says.
For more information about A-Z Farm and its agritourism programs, visit the farm's Web site at www.a-zfarm.com or call 608-835-5553.
Reprinted with permission of Wisconsin State Farmer
