City looks to promote ag tourism
Oceanside is ready to move forward with its plan to promote itself as an agritourism destination, a place where someday tourists may be able to stay in a boutique hotel in the midst of a vineyard and wake up to coffee made with locally grown beans.
The Oceanside City Council recently approved the first phase of the plan, which will help farmers connect with local restaurants to develop farm-to-table dining programs and educate residents about the city’s ag industry.
The city’s main target for agritourism is the South Morro Hills neighborhood in northeastern Oceanside near Fallbrook. The 4,000-acre area has rolling hills covered with farms that produce fruits, flowers and vegetables.
“We’re planting the seeds,” said Leslee Gaul, president of Visit Oceanside, which will help market the city as an agritourism destination.
Growers say agriculture is increasingly difficult to continue due to rising water and labor costs. To keep the fields green years into the future, farmers will have to become more creative about how they use their land and how they sell their crops.
One example of the kind of businesses the city hopes to promote is the Beach House Winery, owned by George and Kim Murray. The winery, surrounded by vineyards, has a tasting room and attracts visitors from all over the country.
George Murray said Morro Hills, with its mild climate and fertile land, is an ideal location to grow grapes for wine making. He said he envisions a half a dozen more small wineries dotting the landscape. All of them using grapes grown in neighboring vineyards to make wine.
“This is one component of Oceanside — like the pier, the harbor and the mission — that you don’t want to see go away,” Murray said.
The effort is still in its infancy.
Last year, the city allocated $50,000 towards agritourism, and the council used $19,000 of that money to hire SMG Consulting to develop a strategic plan. That plan was presented to the council during a workshop held earlier this month outlining a two-phase strategy.
The first phase calls for the city to brand South Morro Hills as an agritourism community, develop a website to help promote it and help farmers develop agritourism-related businesses.
The second phase consists of developing a “community plan” for Morro Hills to identify long-term goals, which could include road, water and sewer upgrades. Visit Oceanside is planning to hold workshops that will bring together residents and business owners in Morro Hills to discuss those issues.
Larry Balma, president of the South Hills Association, said his group’s members agree that agritourism will help keep the community’s rural character. He said many property owners are already feeling the pressure to sell their land for housing and other developments.
“All farmers want to continue farming as long as they can, but you have to make a profit,” Balma said.
Balma and his wife, Louise, who is chairwoman of the city’s Planning Commission, own 25 acres in Morro Hills. Much of their land is covered with avocado groves but high water costs and drought restrictions have made it difficult for them to turn a profit selling their fruit. Many of their neighbors have already cut down hundreds of avocado trees.
Louise Balma said the city’s plan is a good start but it needs work. She said she sees the consultant’s report, which includes recommendations such as loosening fruit stand regulations, as a rough draft that will have to be fleshed out by the community itself.
“These are not fruit-stand kind of farmers,” she said. “We’re hoping to encourage people to come, stay at a boutique hotel and pay to be a farmer for the weekend.”
The ultimate goal is to maintain a slice of Oceanside agricultural, Louise Balma said.
“We just want to keep that,” she said pointing at the surrounding farmland. “We want to keep these vistas.”
