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It is an incredible milestone Tommerup's Dairy Farm very nearly didn't make, celebrating 150 years and six generations of farming on Queensland's Scenic Rim.
In 2021, the family was offered less than 50 cents a litre for milk that cost 95 cents a litre to produce.
As business slid backward and neighbouring dairies dried up, Kay and Dave Tommerup chose between closing or making a radical change.
"There comes a point where you just say, 'We can't do this anymore'. We actually have to value ourselves enough to say that it's not good enough to be paid like that," Ms Tommerup said.
They cut ties with their processor, reduced their herd to 22 cows and saved their farm by offering farm stays, running group tours, farm gate trails, and attending markets.
They sell rich jersey cow butter, cream, crème fraîche, full cream yoghurt, cream top milk, pasture-raised eggs, beef, milk-fed free-range heritage-breed pork, and market garden produce to guests, visitors and chefs.
"Survival. Agritourism has meant survival," Ms Tommerup said.
"We're now not governed by a middleman in any of our products. Everything goes straight to the customer and we see a future with staying in farming.
"Our son has moved back and can see there is a future in agriculture for him."
Sharing the knowledge
Kay Tommerup now hopes to change the future of other farms as the president of a newly launched peak body called Agritourism Queensland.
She said it would be run "by farmers for farmers", lobbying regulators and championing people who want to diversify with offerings in the tourism space.
Ms Tommerup said outdated and inappropriate planning schemes, and a lack of understanding of what agritourism was, had made it a difficult path to navigate.
She said change needed to be made before the upcoming Brisbane Olympic Games.
"The challenges to move into the agritourism space, and to continue to operate there, can often feel overwhelming even after doing it for so many years," she said.
"It's not something that comes naturally to farmers. When it's a means of survival it often necessitates taking on roles that are so far out of your comfort zone."
By 2030, the CSIRO estimates the appetite for agritourism in Australia will be worth $18.6 billion annually.
But Agritourism Queensland treasurer Bronwyn Neuendorf said barriers included red tape and accessing insurance — simple farm tours require $20 million in public liability insurance.
"A lot of people would give up after the first knockbacks, told you've got to fill in all the different material change of uses, and forms," Ms Neuendorf said.
"The typical farmer would probably say, 'Look it's too much, it's too overwhelming.'"
Fighting red tape
With her husband Dave, Ms Neuendorf runs 9Dorf Farms in the Lockyer Valley, a fourth-generation family-owned business.
Eleven years ago the couple switched from mainstream fodder farming to producing pasture-raised chickens, eggs, beef, and aquaculture-grown barramundi and Murray cod.
The eclectic mix attracts chefs, school excursions and tour groups, and the family recently invested in erecting a large marque up on a hill overlooking a dam in the mountains.
"Hiring out the farm block for three days for BYO weddings is just starting to take off now," Ms Neuendorf said.
Ms Neuendorf said the regulatory process has been challenging, giving the example of when she offered a single caravan on her property as an Airbnb.
"Our council told me I was running a caravan park and I needed washing machines and approval for one caravan, to do like a bed and breakfast," she said.
"I want that to change. We as farmers should have right-of-use to our properties."
There are agritourism groups in Tasmania, South Australia, and Western Australia.
New South Wales has led reform, amending planning legislation to develop clear guidelines for agritourism proposals.
"They've allowed farmers to have right-of-use of their property," Ms Neuendorf said.
"If they want to do micro-weddings and they want to do farmgate sales and camping it has made it a lot easier for them to do that."
Potential worth billions
Tina McPherson and her husband Bruce's Bundaberg business Tinaberries is another success story.
The couple began growing strawberries just a couple of kilometres away from the beach 18 years ago but were being outcompeted by larger growers' economies of scale.
In strawberry season, visitors can pick their own, but by value-adding by making delicious ice cream the McPhersons now operate 363 days a year and have almost eliminated fruit waste.
"It certainly has saved our farm and made us a much more profitable enterprise," Ms McPherson said, who also served as the vice-president of Agritourism Queensland.
"School excursions, groups of kids, families who are coming out and picking and eating strawberries in the patch. There's something very special in that.
"It's not just the learning, it's the joy that you see on the faces of families."
Queensland Farmers Federation CEO Jo Sheppard said that the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries was overwhelmed by farmers seeking support when it offered two rounds of agritourism business grants.
Ms Sheppard praised the formation of Agritourism Queensland as an independent peak body.
"It is very much for farmers who want to diversify into agritourism but keep primary production as the core function of their enterprise," she said.
"They don't want to change their material use from farming to tourism.
"If we get this right, by 2030 the agritourism opportunity could be worth well over $4 billion a year to Queensland."
Stories from farms and country towns across Australia, delivered each Friday.