Starter Kit. Idea 492 of 500. Cluster 27
Pick-your-own orchards and fruit trails for visitors in the season, the way apple farms do it in England
The mechanism, from the book
Fruit the world wants, sold in a heap by the road. Grading, a name and a cold box make the heap an export and the season a reason to visit.
The first step
Ask two fruit growers near a road that visitors already use whether guests could pick their own fruit in the season, paying by the kilo. Agree the rules: which trees, how much, and where visitors may walk. Mark a short trail between the farms and offer it to the guesthouses nearby. The proof is the first season of paid visits, and other growers asking to join.
- Who pays first
- A visitor or a Colombo family on a weekend drive who wants to pick fruit straight from the tree and take it home.
- What leaves today
- Fruit sold in a heap earns the heap's price; visitors picking it themselves pay for the fruit and for the day.
Ask first
- Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. Ask whether farm visits and a fruit trail must register as a tourist service.
- the Divisional Secretariat. Ask which growers' organisations in the division could join a fruit trail.
Check before you spend
Confirm each grower's written agreement, safe paths and ladders, insurance for visitors, and a fair price per kilo picked.
Find out these three numbers
- What will a visitor pay per kilo for fruit they pick?
- In which weeks does each farm's fruit ripen?
- How many visitors can each orchard host in a day?
A comparison from the book
The list. Chapter Fourteen
"experiences rather than sights, courses rather than meals"
Picking fruit is an experience, and visitors pay more for that than for the fruit.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.