Agritourism—visiting a working farm for education or recreation—may serve as a tool to increase local food consumption as it often includes opportunities to purchase local food on-site. Yet, the influence of agritourism on consumers’ local food purchasing behavior remains underexplored. Thus, this study measures the impact of agritourism experiences on consumers’ intentions to purchase local food. To do so, visitors were surveyed at six agritourism farms with similar agritourism activities (e.g., U-pick, educational displays, and on-site market) located across North Carolina (USA) before (pre) and after (post) their visits (n = 328). Data, collected during the 2018–2019 peak agritourism season, were analyzed using repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance. Findings indicate that agritourism experiences effectively increase consumers’ intentions to purchase local food. These findings advance the scholarship of agritourism. They also provide useful information to design effective marketing campaigns to promote the purchase and consumption of local food and strengthen local agricultural systems.

Blending agricultural education (AE) and environmental education (EE) frameworks is a promising pathway towards the goals of boosting environmental engagement and support for local agricultural systems among broad public audiences. However, thoughtful and intentional collaboration between researchers is needed to facilitate these outcomes. We feel it is important to collapse existing disciplinary walls between AE and EE to effectively reposition both as critical public goods and address inequitable access to environmental and agricultural knowledge among the next generation. In this paper, we outline the historical context for the silos between U.S.-based AE and EE programmatic and research practice. We then present a new collaborative structure for scholars in both fields to work together to build agricultural and environmental literacy in support of environmentally sustainable, economically robust, and socially responsible agroecosystems. Ultimately, we aim to create structures for broader and more collaborative efforts through which to improve agricultural and environmental literacy for new generations of learners.

Members of the tourism workforce are a crucial resource, whose quality and quantity determine the success of tourism businesses and destinations. Yet, they are frequently subjected to social, psychological, and economic stressors which can result in isolation from destination communities or limited interest in participation in the tourism workforce. Both of these outcomes threaten the sustainability of tourism businesses and destinations, but more importantly create a working environment that can be unjust or unsafe for tourism workforce members. This study relies upon the community capitals framework to identify the resources that currently support the tourism workforce in an island community whose economic and social structure is heavily reliant upon tourism. Analysis of data from in-depth interviews and focus groups with thirty-seven tourism stakeholders reveals the social, cultural, human, and natural capital assets used to support a tourism workforce. An “investment portfolio” for these capitals offers development strategies that can be implemented to help sustain the tourism workforce.

The impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the tourism industry called attention to how crucial it is for tourism operations to be resilient, as their ability to overcome crises also impacts communities and adjacent industries. The communication theory of resilience argues that resilience is a dynamic capability that can be developed through communication processes. Exploring the role of communication processes in building resilience is important to establishing holistic strategies that strengthen the tourism industry. This work applies the communication theory of resilience to explore the employment of communication processes by agritourism operators during the COVID-19 pandemic. Seven agritourism operators in North Carolina, USA, were interviewed about resilience strategies at three points in time in 2020. These interviews revealed the value of communication processes in building resilience in agritourism operations and the facilitating role of communication technologies. These findings reveal that resilience is built collaboratively through social engagement and interaction.

Encouraging sustainable behaviors regarding food choices among the public is crucial to ensure food systems’ sustainability. We expand the understanding of sustainable behavioral change by assessing engagement in local food systems (LFSs) in the context of agritourism experiences. Using theory of planned behavior (TPB) and personal norms, we conducted pre–post-surveys at agritourism farms to measure the impact of changes in the TPB behavioral antecedents as predictors of the following behavioral intentions regarding LFS engagement: (1) purchasing local food (private-sphere behavior), (2) increasing monthly budget to purchase local food (private-sphere behavior) and (3) advocating for local food (public-sphere behavior). Our findings indicate that strategies to encourage LFS engagement should seek to activate moral considerations that can motivate action across private and public behaviors, which applies to various demographic groups. To stimulate collective action, strategies should target subjective norms specifically (e.g., encouraging social interaction around local food), while strategies encouraging private behaviors should focus on easing perceived barriers to buying local food (e.g., promoting local food outlets). As agritourism experiences effectively modify the three above-mentioned behavioral antecedents, we advocate for holistic experiences that provide opportunities for deeper engagement with local food, stimulate the senses, and facilitate social interaction around LFSs.