WSU Alumni Found AgRooted to Support Family Farms
By Scott Jackson
Small family farms face significant challenges, including escalating production costs and fierce competition from large agribusinesses. Growing up on an 80-acre farm in southwest Washington, WSU alums and siblings Jessica and Sean Murray are acutely aware of the challenges facing small family operations like theirs and want to be part of the solution.
An estimated 62 million people a year in the US visit farms, according to the National Tour Association. However, there is no centralized website if people want to look for a farm experience, Jessica says.
In 2022 the Murrays and their small team founded AgRooted. The online platform will allow guests to find and book unique visits to orchards, wineries, vineyards, u-pick pumpkin patches, flower gardens, and other agriculture adventures such as farm stays. After a couple years of hard work, a few setbacks, and the support from entrepreneurship programs at the Carson College of Business, their platform is launching soon.
Jessica says AgRooted’s potential competitors, such as Airbnb and Viator, don’t prominently showcase agricultural experiences, limiting their visibility. These platforms also do not accommodate the wide variety of stays, experiences, or the unique complexities of the offerings available in agritourism.
“We wanted to fill the gap between farmers and consumers,” says Margaret Bader (’22 Hosp. Busi. Mgmt.), AgRooted’s chief marketing officer and the third member of the Murrays’ small team. “A lot of farmers will use Facebook, word of mouth, or local bulletin boards, but they don’t have a single, commonly-used platform for connecting with customers.”
Small farms, big challenges
According to the US Department of Agriculture, around 97 percent of farms in the US are family-owned. Small farms make up about 88 percent of that total, but while they occupy 46 percent of agricultural land, they only account for about 19 percent of the total economic value. These factors have driven many family farms to seek alternative sources of revenue through agritourism, such as offering farm stays, hosting seasonal events, and running farm-to-table dining experiences.
“There’re tons of experiences these farms take for granted that are really unique, especially things like seeing a calf being born, milking cows, or hatching chickens,” Sean says. “Even something as simple as collecting the eggs can be really cool and fascinating for kids and adults.”
Sean says these kinds of trips have broad appeal and can often be a low-cost, close-to-home alternative to vacations with long travel times.
“Even if you grew up in downtown Manhattan, there’s something about going to a farm, touching the dirt, and seeing where your food comes from,” Jessica agrees. “It’s a very emotional connection, even if you have never been there before.”
Start-up progress powered by WSU programs
The AgRooted team hopes to launch and start signing up farms by the end of 2024. Jessica says they wouldn’t be nearly as far along without the support of WSU entrepreneurial programs.
The team entered the WSU Business Plan Competition in spring 2022, and while they didn’t make it very far in the competition, they agree it was a good learning experience. That summer, they completed the Jones Milestone Accelerator program offered by WSU’s Center for Entrepreneurship, which provided $20,000 in seed funding with additional financial support for legal resources.
Additionally, every member of the team has taken entrepreneurship classes from the Carson College, including Sean, who earned his degree in mechanical engineering in 2022.
Jessica brings diverse experience and knowledge to the team, having completed WSU bachelor’s degrees in hospitality business management and food science in 2015, a master’s degree in 2017, and a PhD in 2022. After completing a post-doctoral position in the School of Hospitality Business Management, she joined the hospitality faculty as a career track assistant professor.
She says entrepreneurial experience across majors is a big part of what sets the WSU business school apart from its peers.
“There’s always a lot of opportunity if you’re willing to say ‘yes,’ and try new things, and that’s what I’ve always found especially powerful about WSU,” Jessica says. “I have connections and opportunities I never would have had if I had not said ‘yes’ to something unfamiliar.”