10 October 2024
Today Agritourism Queensland announces its Strategic Partnership with Regionality Pty Ltd to help grow the sector and the organisation’s reach across the state.
The partnership with Regionality will enable AQ to offer support for farmers to explore farm innovation to build resilience and yield through diversification and value adding to farm production through agritourism.
Built on a long-standing trusted relationship between the Queensland Farmers’ Federation (QFF) and Regionality, the two organisations joined forces in 2019 to champion the cause for agritourism in Queensland with Regionality producing QFF’s Agritourism Roadmap for Queensland. The establishment of our new industry organisation Agritourism Queensland, has evolved from this work.
The AQ – Regionality strategic partnership is founded on a shared vision for the future for agritourism in Queensland and common values that respect and uphold the primacy of agriculture.
Our rollout of member support programs will be announced before the end of 2024, that will include support, mentoring, information and capacity building for farmers wanting to establish or develop their agritourism business on their farm.
“Regionality’s founder has pioneered innovation in agritourism sector development in Australia over the last twenty years and has helped thousands of farmers along the way” said Kay Tommerup, President of Agritourism Queensland. “Both Regionality and its founder have provided unwavering commitment to the agritourism sector in Queensland for over two decades. They continue to champion reforms to help farmers at a global, national and policy and strategy level, while working one-on-one with farmers across Regional Australia. This partnership will ensure our organisation and Queensland farmers are being supported with the best and latest thinking in agritourism and agri-food innovation from people who understand farming and value the primacy of agriculture above all.”
“We are very grateful for the opportunity to partner with AQ and support their development over the coming years. We see the opportunities across Queensland but are also extremely aware of the challenges for farmers, the agriculture and tourism sectors and governments. Our aim is to share our knowledge and help solve some of the wicked problems to benefit farmers, regional communities and to help AQ become a knowledge broker and advocate for the sector’s sustainable and appropriate growth into the future” said Rose Wright, Regionality’s Founder.
“If agritourism is going to develop to benefit real farmers across the state, we need to take a very different approach from developing other tourism sectors. Farmers first focus is farming, they already have a day job, so agritourism needs to compliment not conflict with their core business of farming. This means we need to think about a whole range of things differently both on farm and in offices where policies, strategies and regulations are developed,” said Mrs Wright. “… if we get this right, we can make an extraordinary difference to the lives and futures of farming families and regional communities across the state. Helping farmers access the right information for their context is critical in my view, that’s why we are so honoured to work with Kay and the AQ Management Committee to help make a difference” she said.
-ENDS-
To speak with Agritourism Queensland or Regionality Pty Ltd please contact:
Rebecca Donohoe
Executive Officer, Agritourism Queensland
[email protected]
0476 246 449