How Agritourism Can Revitalize Modern Agriculture Getting Radically Traditional with White Oak Pastures

By Ainsley Schoppel | Excerpts from interview by Ty Johnson

Agrotourism is a self-explanatory venture: it’s the crossroads of agriculture and tourism—it’s the linkage of agricultural production and/or processing with tourism to attract visitors onto a farm, ranch, or other agricultural business for the purposes of entertainment and/or education that is a source of income for the business owner.

Agrotourism operations can be found throughout the U.S. and all over the world, ranging from seasonal operations to larger, year-round operations that offer numerous consumer services. Examples of larger-scale agrotourism include dude ranches, demonstration farms, agricultural museums, petting and feeding zoos, living-history farms, winery tours and tastings, rural bed and breakfasts, and some multiproduce you-pick operations.

Seasonal agrotourism includes pumpkinpicking patches, corn mazes, hayrides, cutyour-own Christmas tree farms, and some smaller produce farms such as strawberry patches.

In all its forms, agrotourism gives producers an opportunity to generate income in addition to their operation’s primary output, and it also serves as an avenue for direct marketing to consumers. Agrotourism can also enhance the local tourism industry by increasing the overall volume of visitors to an area as well as their length of stay. Additionally, communities can potentially increase their local tax bases and new employment opportunities while educating the public, preserving agricultural lands, and developing business enterprises. One agrotourism farm getting it right in every way is White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia.

White Oak Pastures is a sixgeneration farm of over five thousand acres that has been in the Harris family for over one hundred and fifty years. Captain James Edward Harris founded the family farm soon after the Civil War, working the land with sharecroppers and raising cows, hogs, and chickens. Early in the twentieth century, James’ son, Will Carter Harris, took over the farm and increased production. Meat was delivered via a mule-drawn wagon three miles up a dirt road into the town of Bluffton where it was distributed to general stores and other locales. After World War II, Will Bell Harris took up his leadership of the farm during a time when science introduced chemical tools to farming, and the slaughtering process became centralized and distant from the pastures. As the century ended, White Oak Pastures only produced cattle for the industrial beef production industry.

However, a transition began in 1995 when Will Harris III made the conscious decision to return to a production system that is better for the animals, the consumers, and the environment. “The scientific advances that were funded by the WWII effort...led to food productions systems that were incredibly cheap in the short run,” Will explains. “In the longer term, they resulted in costs that we cannot bear.” Will reinstated the multi-species rotational grazing practices used by his forefathers, and he built abattoirs on the farm to keep the slaughtering process on their own land. Today, White Oak Pastures raises ten species of livestock; processes the animals on the farm;

Four Factors of Agrotourism:

1. Combines the essential elements of the tourism and agriculture industries.

2. Attracts members of the public to visit agricultural operations.

3. Designed to increase farm income.

4. Provides visitors with recreation, entertainment, and/or educational experiences.

“Knowing your farmer is the best-case, and it is possible! More importantly, the consumer should know what production systems their farmer employs.”—Will and markets the beef, poultry, lamb, eggs, rabbits, vegetables, leather products, pet chews, and tallow products directly to consumers— consumers who appreciate and return to the artisan, small-batch products.

“Knowing your farmer is the best-case, and it is possible! More importantly, the consumer should know what production systems their farmer employs.”—Will Harris III

White Oak Pastures likes to say that they are Radically Traditional Farming, and part of returning to some traditional practices means embracing regenerative farming. For White Oak Pastures, that means being a zero-waste farm. After they sell the meats and poultry that are butchered on site—to consumers who are just as passionate about the animals, land, and community—the cattle hides are dried for pet chew rawhides or tanned and crafted into leather goods. The fat from the cattle is rendered down and fabricated into some of the purest tallow products available, and the inedible viscera is composted to become rich organic matter that is used to fertilize the farm’s soil. Butchering meat from animals raised in a regenerative manner using humane animal management practices requires over one hundred and fifty-five people working together on the farm to take care of the land and livestock. White Oak Pastures also implements a grass-fed pastured program for their cattle, also giving up feeding grain, using hormone implants, and treating animals with antibiotics. The farm also completely stopped using chemical fertilizers and pesticides and raised 7000 laying hens as part of their pasture-laid egg production. The chickens live, roost, and lay outside, and are never held in crates or cages. The farm’s holistic planned grazing methods use animal impact to sequester carbon, control erosion, and increase organic matter in their soils. And, not only does White Oak Pastures acquire and transform former commodity row crop land into regenerated perennial pasture every year, they have also partnered to provide planned livestock grazing and regenerative land management on a neighbouring 2,400-acre solar farm.

Even though the production changes and farm additions at White Oak Pastures are for the betterment of the animals, consumers, and the environment, they come at a financial cost—one the farm is willing to bear if it means doing the right thing. However, when asked if humanity can be united behind the collective cause of regenerative agriculture, Will Harris III replied, “Sadly, I don’t know. Food raised properly simply costs more than food that is produced industrially. I am unsure what percentage of us are willing to pay the higher costs, but it is far less than one hundred percent.” Harris notes that there is a minimum amount of societal participation required to sustain regenerative agricultural farms, though the market is still determining that number.

One way to increase the community’s understanding of dayto-day regenerative agricultural practices is by offering agrotourism experiences—and that is exactly what White Oak Pastures has done. The farm has four one-bedroom cabins nestled in longleaf pines, as well as a two-bedroom pond house that sits on a peninsula of a fifteenacre pond, each of which can be rented for a cozy farm stay. And since most cabins do not have TV or wi-fi, it’s a wonderful opportunity to unplug and disconnect from everyday life. Looking to stay city-side as you explore the farm during the day? White Oak Pastures also has three rentable houses in downtown Bluffton available to explore South Georgia. If you’re more of an RV camper, stay at White Oak’s Pasture’s RV Park, complete with all necessary hookups. And because White Oak Pastures is a working farm, you may be waking up to cattle, sheep, goats, hogs, or poultry roaming just outside your door!

During the day, you can hike and explore the farm, and even participate in workshops that are offered throughout the year. Some past workshops have included: pasture-raised poultry production; herbs for everyday health; beekeeping; butchering—a lost art; tallow; canning and preserving vegetables; leather shoemaking; skull decorating; and soil health management. You can also participate in farm tours, and as one of the only farms in the United States to have both red meat and poultry abattoirs located on the premises, White Oak Pastures is a preeminent farm to learn about the process of butchering and its regenerative practices. You can also join farm tours that highlight their Certified Organic vegetable garden and pastured egg operation, as well as classes in soap making, hide tanning, seeding, and mushroom cultivation.

Another fascinating farm tour begins with an historical walk of Bluffton that culminates in the farm’s classroom space where visitors are taught about the transition of White Oak Pastures from an industrial cattle farm to the regenerative agriculture model it functions as today. The tour also includes a trip to the farm’s Makerspace where guests learn about the leather workshop, tallow kitchen, and hide-barn pet chew operations.

And if trail rides are more your speed, White Oak Pastures offers a variety of equine and horsemanship packages to add to your visit or stay. One trail ride includes a tour of the farm as you ride through the organic garden and pastures to view the grazing herds of cows, turkeys, hogs, sheep, goats, and even native wildlife. You’ll then rest and recharge with a picnic in the pasture—a beautiful moment to honour any special occasion.

During the day, you can hike and explore the farm, and even participate in workshops that are offered throughout the year. Some past workshops have included: pastureraised poultry production; herbs for everyday health; beekeeping; butchering—a lost art; tallow; canning and preserving vegetables; leather shoemaking; skull decorating; and soil health management. You can also join farm tours that highlight their Certified Organic vegetable garden and pastured egg operation, as well as classes in soap making, hide tanning, seeding, and mushroom cultivation.

Not wanting to leave the downtown core out of the farming picture, White Oak Pastures purchased the General Store and saved it from a vacancy of over fifty years. With a full renovation in 2016, the historical integrity of the onehundred-and-seventy-five-year-old building was maintained and now serves as a welcoming location for Bluffton residents and visitors to find everyday necessity items and locally produced artisan goods. Looking for a souvenir or delicious reminder of your stay at the farm? Head to the General Store to find small-batch products made in Georgia and across the South including jams, grits, milk, cheeses, fresh meats and poultry, pet chews, honey, leather and tallow goods, t-shirts, and ball caps. You can even grab a meal at The Farmer’s Table, the General Store’s restaurant, any time of the day. Located directly behind the store, you can sit outside and enjoy a fan-favourite Deep South Burger—house-made patty, lettuce, grilled onions, bell pepper, jalapenos, Sweet Grass Dairy Lil Moo Cheese, and house-made chipotle ranch—while taking in the sights of downtown Bluffton. ymore info: www.whiteoakpastures.com www.thecfar.org

And, as yet another example of their drive to not only improve their town and their own farming practices, White Oak Pastures founded the non-profit Center for Agricultural Resilience (CFAR). This center was created to educate thought leaders on the environmental, economic, and social benefits of building resilient animal, plant, and human ecosystems that can nourish communities. It’s White Oak Pastures’ hope that agriculture can be rethought, and their own twentyfive-year-long production journey is a guide that they want to share. The goal of CFAR is not to make resilient agriculture more scalable, but to make it more replicable. CFAR is not a “how-to” course to recreate White Oak Pastures’ model, because each farm, land, and community will vary across ecosystems. Their mission, however, is to inspire a rethinking by demonstrating what has been accomplished and scaled by real-world businesspeople with a realistic budget on a working farm. It’s the hope of CFAR and White Oak Pastures that at least one resilient food production system will appear in every agricultural county in the U.S., hopefully inspiring a ripple-effect of change in the farming industry.

White Oak Pastures is a living, breathing farm that proves that farms aren’t just one thing, they can be everything. As a proud example of authentic American agriculture, the farm is reviving rural areas, using regenerative farming techniques, and embracing agrotourism to educate and entertain a public yearning for a more connected experience with the land. So, make your next trip one to White Oak Pastures—it’s truly a living reminder of the past as we work to feed our planet into the future.

Donations to CFAR will be used to help bring leaders to Bluffton to participate in learning sessions!

Purchase tickets for CFAR’s next Fundamentals Session: Nutrition Focus, September 11-13, 2023.