Dodecanese: a network of 15 farms open to visitors

A new organised network of primary production and food processing units open to visitors is being created in the Dodecanese, under the banner of South Aegean/Dodecanese Open Farm Days 2026. As announced on Thursday 20 August and reported by Dimokratiki of Rhodes, the Region of South Aegean has already signed the relevant contract with Open Farm and is proceeding with implementation. The first stage provides for the mapping and digital promotion of at least fifteen units in the Dodecanese islands that are open to visitors. Eligible to join are crop and livestock producers, as well as food and drink businesses, that is wineries, olive mills, mills and cheese dairies. The process remains open until October, before the activities begin.

For every unit that joins, a digital profile is created on the new local agri-food network, which will be hosted on the openfarm.gr platform. A dedicated web page is also planned with the participating units and the programme of their events, so that visitors know in advance which farms are taking part and what each one offers. In parallel, a training programme titled Train the Farmers is being designed, covering themes such as telling the story of the product, agritourism, sustainable practices and the regulatory framework for the operation of multifunctional and agritourism units. The training is aimed at the producers themselves, since receiving visitors requires skills that have nothing to do with production.

The Open Farm Days will take place within a period to be set by the Region, between 15 October and 15 November. The choice of period is not accidental: these are the weeks immediately after the close of the summer tourist season, when the islands’ infrastructure remains available but visitor numbers fall away sharply. During the activities there will be organised visits, guided tours, tastings and workshops, while wherever feasible visitors will be able to take part in individual tasks on the unit. A digital platform will be activated for bookings and information, with the explicit aim that the initiative should work as an organised tourism product and not as a series of isolated events.

What the islands are after is for primary production to acquire a second, tourism dimension, so that the visitor gets to know the place, the producer and the process behind the product. That aim is directly linked to the structural problem recorded in the national figures, where arrivals are rising faster than travel receipts: lengthening the season and increasing spending per visitor are two ways of addressing it. The cost of operating on the small islands nevertheless remains high, as the price of fuel in the Dodecanese also shows. The announcement does not give a budget for the initiative, nor a list of the islands and units that will take part, details expected to be finalised once the deadline for joining closes in October.