Hawai’i’s agritourism sector is generating significant visitor demand while operating under a regulatory framework that has left most of its farmers without clear rules, consistent permits, or current data. The experience is a useful reference point for WA operators navigating their own questions about planning approvals, agency coordination, and industry identity.

Ray Tsuchiyama, who advised on the County of Maui Department of Agriculture’s 2024-2028 strategic plan, describes a state where agritourism has been legally permitted on agricultural land since 2006 but where the rules differ by county, agencies responsible for agriculture, tourism, and planning rarely share a table, and the last statewide count of farms earning agritourism income dates to 2006. That count found approximately 2 percent of farms participating, with activity valued at $38.8 million. No updated figure exists.

The demand, however, is not waiting. The Hawai’i Tourism Authority’s visitor surveys show that approximately 13 percent of US visitors, roughly one in eight, participated in agritourism in each of the two most recent state data books. Yet the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism estimated that only 9.4 percent of Hawai’i’s agricultural sales in 2019 came from tourism. The gap between visitor appetite and farm income is the planning failure.

A Patchwork of Rules Suppresses the Sector

Tsuchiyama identifies three agencies operating in parallel without coordination: state and county agriculture departments managing leases, irrigation, and biosecurity; the Hawai’i Tourism Authority marketing the destination; and county planning departments controlling what can legally occur on a farm. The Maui County Council did not formalise agritourism as a permitted accessory use in its agricultural districts until July 2025. Other counties remain unsettled.

The practical result is that a farmer wanting to run tours, host tastings, or open a farm stand faces different approval processes depending on which county the land sits in, with no certainty about how long approval will take or what standard applies. A 2026 state bill, House Bill 2585, proposed statewide standards but stalled in a Senate committee and became a task force study rather than law. Kona farmer Krista Olson, owner of Ola Mahina Gardens, told state senators that diversified non-crop income, meaning agritourism, was “do-or-die” for farms like hers.

What Other Regions Built Instead

Tsuchiyama draws on several international examples where governments treated agritourism as a policy objective rather than a planning afterthought.

Japan established 1,200 government-registered rural roadside stations from 1993 onward, creating a network of farm-gate destinations integrated into national rural infrastructure. South Tyrol’s regional farmers association launched the Roter Hahn quality certification seal in 1998; it now covers 1,600 holiday farms. France’s Bienvenue a la ferme network, created by the Chambers of Agriculture in 1988, cites 10,000 farms selling products and welcoming visitors. Taiwan began promoting registered leisure farming in 1989 and had 507 registered leisure farms by 2021 across a range of agricultural types including aquaculture, bamboo, and specialty horticulture.

The common feature across these programs is that farmers did not build the framework individually. Industry or government built the structure, the certification, and the marketing channel, and farmers joined it.

What This Means for WA Operators

The Hawai’i situation is a close enough parallel to WA that the lessons translate directly.

WA operators face their own version of the three-agency problem. Local government planning, the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, and Tourism WA each have a role in what an agritourism operation can do, and those roles are not always exercised from a shared framework. A farm in one shire may face a different definition of “farm stay” or “agritourism” than the same operation ten kilometres away in a neighbouring shire. The practical experience of WAAA members confirms that permit uncertainty and inconsistent local planning interpretations are among the most common friction points operators raise.

Tsuchiyama’s recommendation that Hawai’i settle what “accessory” means, distinguish genuine working farms from speculative landholdings, and build a certification seal through farmer organisations rather than government bureaucracy is directly applicable here. A WA-run certification mark, credible enough that visitors use it to identify authentic farm experiences and operators use it to benchmark their offering, is exactly the kind of asset a peak body builds over time with member input.

On the data question, WA is in a better position than Hawai’i but not by as much as it should be. If WA cannot demonstrate the economic contribution of agritourism with current figures, the sector will continue to be treated as a footnote in state agricultural and tourism planning rather than a line item worth resourcing.

WAAA is building the coordination infrastructure that Hawai’i is still debating: a collective voice to government, a peer network, and the beginning of a shared professional framework. It is volunteer-led and early-stage, which means the speed of that work is directly connected to how many operators are part of it. Specific actions worth considering now:

• Review your current planning approvals against your actual operation. If what you do has expanded since your original permit, the gap carries compliance risk regardless of which county, state, or country you are looking at for comparison.
• Document your agritourism revenue separately from primary production revenue. When WA needs to make a case to government for policy support or planning reform, that data has to come from operators.
• If you have navigated a planning approval or shire interpretation question that others are likely to face, the WAAA member forum is the right place to put that experience on record. Shared knowledge is how the sector avoids repeating the same costly lessons individually.

The Hawai’i case is useful precisely because it shows what happens when a sector waits for government to build the framework on its own. The farms that are generating reliable income from visitors are the ones that did not wait.