ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the context and challenges for local foods and rural tourism development. It investigates issues facing entrepreneurs in order to identify ways of strengthening tourism and product development. Rural tourism in Michigan and the North Midlands depended on natural, built and human resources. In both Ireland and the United States, liability concerns are an impediment to tourism development. A range of individual agri-tourism producers were invited to participate in focus groups in order to identify the diversity of Michigan's agricultural products. Federal-State Marketing Improvement Program (FSMIP) has funded projects that would further specialty agricultural production, agriculture-based education and entertainment. The Irish study region included the five North Midland counties (NMCs) of Westmeath, Longford, Roscommon, Cavan and Leitrim. The chapter concludes that the rural tourism represents a somewhat difficult but necessary change from farmers' traditional production to a services orientation.
