A Seasonal Menu of Farm Experiences
Amado, AZ
Harvest spring lettuce, wander a corn maze, pick pumpkins, flock with the sheep in the petting zoo. Whatever the season, Agua Linda Farm in Amado, Arizona, offers a buffet of reasons to keep coming back to the farm throughout the year. And that’s just how owner Stewart Loew likes it. “We always have something available to pick, eat or experience,” says Stewart. “We provide a slice of farm life, an opportunity to have fun in a new setting for an afternoon.”
Located on 63 acres in south-central Arizona, Stewart returned to the farm he grew up on ten years ago, leaving a urban career as a sound engineer in New York City. He now lives on the farm with his wife, a schoolteacher in town, two kids, ages eight and ten, and his parents. “Given the population growth and development in our area, I saw opportunity to reinvent this place as a destination farm, creating a range of small micro-businesses that would draw people back throughout the year,” explains Stewart. The buildings on the farm, including Stewart’s home and various outbuildings are in a picturesque, historic, adobe hacienda style, setting the stage for the farm experience and reminiscent of ranching’s early days.
About a third of the farm’s acreage form the growing fields, providing a succession of pick-your-own produce throughout the season. “In May and June, you can pick salad greens. Summer through fall, we’ve got a range of vegetables, including squashes, beans, cucumbers, melons and tomatoes. And from December through April, we offer stored seasonal produce like potatoes and onions,” says Stewart. A U-pick situation can be a necessity in a hot southwest climate where produce will quickly wilt after its harvested due to heat. “By picking what they want themselves, folks get hands-on experience and incredibly fresh produce.” The remaining two thirds of the farm is in in sod and hay for grassfed beef.
Stewart added grassfed beef to the farm’s product mix about five years ago, currently processing about nine steers annually. “Grassfed beef takes more time to raise since the animals take close to twenty-two months to mature, versus six months for grain fed beef,” says Stewart. “But I can get several hundred dollars more per grassfed animal, so the difference is worth it financially.”
Customers buy individual cuts of meat from a freezer case on the farm porch. Stewart finds the “choice” pieces of meat tend to sell best and at a premium price, such as T-Bone and Rib Eye steaks. Other pieces go into ground chuck which then become hamburgers at the on-site hamburger stand Stewart runs intermittently with a temporary food license from the state. “Hands down, cooked hamburgers are the most profitable way to sell meat,” admits Stewart. “Plus, our customers are in essence sampling our beef when they buy a hamburger. Some are likely to take some cuts home,” he adds smiling.
Farming in an arid desert climate necessitates that water resources be conserved and well-managed. In Stewart’s family since 1958, the land that the family owns includes water rights — something in this part of the country that is often worth four times the value of the land alone. To most efficiently use water for their operations, Stewart recently finished a large-scale conservation project in partnership with his Natural Resource Conservation District (NRCD) on 52 acres involving lasers to pin-point level land in order to best manage flood irrigation, thereby decreasing water and electricity needs.
October brings Agua Linda’s busiest time of year where it showcases pumpkins in a month-long fesival. “We have three acres in a variety of pumpkins for U-Pick, from traditional Halloween types to specialty pumpkins like green, white, and supergiant,” explains Stewart. Corn and hay bale mazes and a petting zoo (which visitors pay a small fee to enter), hay rides and a variety of other farm-based and locally-made products such as raw honey, firewood and pecans bring crowds of over 3,000 visitors per weekend. Most visitors to Agua Linda Farm come from a twelve mile radius, often families and seniors from local retirement communities.
The Pumpkin Festival provides Stewart with strong opportunity for media attention. “The media looks for fall-based stories during this time of year and it’s a lot cheaper for me to send out 500 press releases than buy advertising space,” says Stewart. “Every year we need to provide the media something new, a different newsworthy reason to come to the farm. Some years, it’s our work with school and kids’ groups, bringing field trips to the farm for a reduced fee during the week. This year the NRCD conservation project proved to be something new and interesting.”
Future ventures include adding a restaurant, inn and full commercial kitchen to offer pies and baked goods for sale. “A local commercial bakery made pumpkin pies for us to sell this year using our pumpkins, but they ended up using pre-made crusts and the pies weren’t good,” admits Stewart. “So, I figured we just need to make them ourselves.” He recently started renting the whole facility for weddings and special events, and looks to add a Labor Day watermelon festival, concerts in the pasture and perhaps even a lighted hot air balloon “glow” at night.
“It’s important to make sure the size and scale of what you’re doing make sense with one’s environment and budgets,” advises Stewart. “In our case, the family farm was paid for so I could focus on building the business. Farming is not a ‘dot com’ type endeavor, with a quick in and out investment and profit. Farming represents a commitment to a long-term lifestyle.”