Cowbells at bush weddings as farmers weather COVID and drought with business diversity

Walking down the aisle to the melody of bellowing cattle is not everyone’s ideal wedding, but as agritourism and rural events grow in popularity, farmers are cashing in.

Couples ditching the chapel for the paddock coincides with some tough years in parts of Queensland, where many regions have been in drought since 2018.

Now, with high input prices putting further pressure on farmers’ finances, many are diversifying their businesses by hosting guests.

The owner of Henderson Park near Yeppoon, Ryan Anderson, was ahead of the curve when he and his wife Niki expanded their cattle property into a farm stay and event venue two decades ago.

Mr Anderson said expanding to protect their livelihood from the unpredictability of weather and commodity prices made sense.

“About 20 years ago we diversified and tried to really move away from relying on seasons and cattle price fluctuations,” Mr Anderson said. 

The couple constructed two cabins near the creek on their property and opened a lodge to increase capacity and facilities in 2009.

“It is a pretty good location for guests … it gives them an experience that’s different,” Mr Anderson said.

“They get to see what a property looks like, we’ll take them for a tour and show them around.

“People get a lot out of it, especially overseas people … because they just don’t get exposure to anywhere else.”

Mr Anderson said the multifaceted approach paid off during the pandemic.

“The diversity away from the ag into the tourism business actually really swung around the other way when COVID hit,” he said.

“That’s been a really big thing for us.

Boom time for the bush

Regional Australia Institute chief economist Kim Houghton said it was quite common for agricultural businesses to diversify and that approximately 50 per cent of farms earned more than half their income off-farm.

“It’s an effective means of managing seasonality and certainly the ebbs and flows of production,” he said.

“There’s a lot of farming families that are doing quite a lot of diverse things.”

Dr Houghton said growth in regional population and growth in domestic tourism had been the drivers of an expanding agritourism and rural-based events industry in recent years as COVID lockdowns turned people to destinations “further down their bucket list”.

“There has been steady growth in regional populations — higher growth than most people were expecting,” he said.

“Everybody was worried about collapsing domestic tourism.

“One of the things I think we started to see is more interest and investment in developing and broadening that product in a rural setting, in a rural context, whether it’s a farm stay or a farm venue for a special event.”

Marriage of convenience

The owner of The Orchard near Yeppoon, Bernadette Melrose, said she found the multiple income streams beneficial, especially when her orchard failed.

“Everyone knows with the fruit it can be very hit and miss,” she said.

“You generally have a good year and then a not-so-good year … so yeah, it’s good to have an alternative income stream.

“We’ve built it up from there… to about 12 events a year.”

Ms Melrose said the rural, outdoor setting meant the business could operate more freely under COVID restrictions than those in cities.

“Last year was really busy, this year is really busy,” she said.

“I think people very much didn’t want to do the … traditional wedding,” Ms Melrose said.

“I felt very much like we had that kind of trend of people doing that.”

Dr Houghton said the challenge for the industry moving forward was maintaining interest and meeting expectations of the market.

“For our smaller centres it’s challenging, because often these visitors have different expectations,” he said.

“If the products keep pace with expectations, that product diversifies, and as the sophistication of some of those rural based tourism and events products increases you get a much better chance of selling that as an ongoing destination.”