There are more than 30,000 farms in New York state. For a growing number of them, crops and livestock aren’t the only money maker. Agritourism is a growing business in upstate New York. And there are some pretty unique places out there to visit.

Mark Gilbride started raising alpacas about 15 years ago on his farm in the rolling hillsides of Bloomfield, Ontario County.

“We invite people to come to our farm [and] take a tour,” said Gilbride, owner of Lazy Acre Alpacas.

“I get a lot of people that come from the city that have really never experienced an on-farm type experience, and they love coming here."

The farm is part of a growing type of business and attraction. Agritourism is a $55 million-a-year industry in New York, and many farm tourism businesses are located in the Finger Lakes.

“This is a beautiful area,” said Jacob Maslyn, the agriculture economic development educator with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ontario County. “We have a couple of major highways that roll right through. We're becoming a bigger and bigger tourist destination, and so it's ripe for agricultural tourism.”

The types of agritourism businesses run the gamut, from farm stands to livestock tours to corn mazes and pumpkin patches.

“I think I passed a dozen farm stands today,” said Maslyn.

In Shortsville, there is a farm dedicated to reindeer.  

“They’re like cows with antlers,” joked Mike Schaertl, a retired school teacher who started Shortsville reindeer farm in 2017.  “We never really thought about getting into the whole agritourism business. The first couple of reindeer, we just were going to have pets."

Schaertl says the most frequently asked question is, why reindeer? He says he read about a guy in Pennsylvania who had a reindeer farm, who held a conference for reindeer owners.

“My wife and I went down there and talked to a bunch of owners,” he said. “And half of us thought it was a real good idea.”

The reindeer farm runs limited hours for part of the year.  Summer is too hot for them.  Schaertl did open recently to let people see a newborn reindeer, and the farm is a big draw around the holidays, obviously. 

“We try to tell the kids we don't have Santa's reindeer here,” he said. “Because they'll want to know which one is Rudolph and which one is the Dasher and Prancer.” 

On Tuesday, June 3, Schaertl will host tourism officials from around the region for an event promoting the benefits of agritourism.

“We don't make an awful lot of money with it,” he said. “But that's not our purpose. That’s not our plan.”

At a time when New York farms continue to disappear, agritourism promotes and preserves a way of life that for Gilbride — is rewarding.

“Working with people, and just showing them a good time,” he says, when asked what he enjoys most about the farm. “Walking out, they're just overwhelmed by what a great time they had.”