"Agritourism" was not in use at the time, but the concept is described in the 1989 film plot: Fictional character Ray Kinsella hears a voice commanding him to build a baseball diamond in his cornfield and lets bills slide while he's clearing out his crop for the park. People end up coming to his Iowa farm to relive their childhood baseball days - and they pay top dollar for that experience.

The movie's famous advice - If you build it, they will come - is slowly being embraced by U.S. farm and ranch families fighting inflation, high equipment costs and skyrocketing fuel prices that have long outpaced the income they eke out of their land.

Call it agritourism or agritainment, but also call it new dollars going into some farmers' pockets. Along with the movie site's baseball field that's preserved near this small Iowa town, farmers and ranchers nationwide are setting up corn mazes in their fields, opening their working farms to sponsored tours and dreaming up festivals of every stripe for visitors who are willing to pay for the privilege.Ï

In Utah, efforts to help farmers expand into agritourism are spotty, uncoordinated and years behind what other states are doing to help farmers and ranchers stay in business. Yet without additional economic options, Utah farmers are bearing the full brunt of market forces that are pushing them to sell out.

From the loss of farmland as the state's population grows - each new resident takes out an acre - to ever-rising prices for equipment and fuel, more and more farmers are faced with ever-dwindling revenues. Agritainment might be a way out for some, but whether many ever get to take advantage of the opportunity remains to be seen. Certainly the amount of support they get for such ventures in Utah pales in comparison to other states.

John Valentine, an Orem Republican who is president of the Utah State Senate, said he has never heard of agritourism in the 18 years he has served in the Legislature, let alone been aware of any proposal to foster its development. He said he hunts pheasants on a working farm in South Dakota, but assumed the operation grew up through normal market forces - without assistance from any state agency.

In reality, South Dakota's Office of Tourism for the past several years has conducted annual workshops to help farmers and ranchers develop hunter-vacation packages. Agritourism also is on the agenda at Gov. Mike Rounds' tourism conference scheduled in January.

South Dakota is among a growing number of states in the Midwest and the East that have recognized agritainment can help preserve the local food chain, which in turn preserves open spaces and protects the nation's food supply. For instance, Illinois has an online workshop to assist those in start-up agritourism venture. Pennsylvania provides low-interest loans and grants. Kansas has passed legislation enabling farmers to buy low-cost liability insurance policies, which are usually the biggest costs for farmers who invite visitors to their spreads.

In Vermont, a state much like Utah, with small farms and population pressures inflating land prices, farmers brought in $19.5 million from agritourism in 2002, nearly double the amount from two years before, according to the Travel Industry Association of America. In fact, one-third of all Vermont farms received income from agritourism, averaging nearly $8,900. The survey also found that farms with fewer acres tended to be more involved in agritourism than larger farms. Because such ventures are in their infancy in Utah, no direct comparisons are available.

And there is no mistaking that diversification is critical to the financial well-being of most farming operations. About 90 percent of the nation's farm family income comes from the families holding down jobs away from the farm, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Government subsidies do little to help small and medium-sized farms. Only operations with annual sales of more than $250,000 raked in more government payments than was made by working away from the farm.

In Syracuse, about 25 miles north of Salt Lake City, Charles Black cut a corn maze in his vegetable fields to attract paying visitors because of pressures to sell his land in a city with a population that within the past six years has doubled, to more than 2,000. The family already has sold off 70 acres on the north side of Antelope Drive because it became too difficult for tractors and farm equipment to cross the congested thoroughfare.

Trying to run a farm in the middle of a development boom can force farmers out of business, even if they want to hang on.

In Riverton, Michael Giolas is suing his hometown, claiming that city officials made it impossible for him to continue growing alfalfa and hay in an area that's less than an hour drive from Salt Lake City. Giolas contends that city officials installed pipes in an old open-ditch irrigation system that then leaked one-third of the water it was to deliver. He also claims construction crews dumped waste, dirty water and dirt on his land, killing his crops.

The 2001 litigation, scheduled for trial next year, is a story about inevitable development. Some of the land Giolas leased had been rezoned for residential homes and held for 25 years until it could be sold to developers.

"I know of no solution when market forces take out farmland," said Riverton Mayor William Applegarth. "It's unfortunate, because we have limited resources to buy land for parks and open spaces for recreation, but having a working farm is as beautiful a sight - and it costs us nothing."

Against this backdrop of fading farmland, the charm of agritainment is that no two farm or ranch attractions generally are alike. One farm could feature a converted cabin that once was a boarded up home. Down the road, another operation might stage country music concerts, fly-fishing or quilt trunk shows.

In Dyersville, Iowa, the difference between neighboring side businesses is most apparent at the two Iowa farms where "Field of Dreams" was filmed.

On one side of the ball field, just behind the backstop, is a small red clapboard stand, which has "gone to great efforts not to over-commercialize" the property, proclaims its souvenir pamphlet. On the third-base side stands a larger white block retail shop, developed by a group of out-of-state investors.

"Both sides want visitors to have a good time," says Alice Schmidt, who works at the third-base shop. "But each side has different ideas on how to make that possible."

Schmidt's side sponsors the Ghost Players who do performances that have drawn as many as 2,000 people for a single show. On the other side, most activities have been curtailed, allowing people to simply play ball.

With the exception of third base, the Landsing family owns most of the ball field and the white two-story frame house and hanging porch swing shown in the movie. The late Don Landsing, who rode in the first car during the twilight scene when headlights move toward the diamond, had said that he got the idea of inviting visitors months after the movie's release. A New York man traveling to California had stopped by and was so moved that he handed Landsing a New York Giants ball cap. Since then, more than 1 million people have gone the distance to see the farm.

"It was magical," says a visitor who signed a guest book behind the backstop.

"You built it - we came," says another.

Jeff Pacha of Wichita, Kan., said he had wanted to play with his four sons on this field for a long time, as he caught a ground ball.

Marcia Weigel, who has worked at the red souvenir shop for the past 17 years, says the number of visitors at the movie site has become an economic development tool for the area.

"This goes beyond these two farms," said Weigel, an extra in the movie's school scene where censorship was debated. "It helps out a lot of restaurants and many other business in the neighboring towns, too."

dawn@sltrib.com