Picking fruit on West Coast farms has long been an appealing option for isle family vacationers seeking alternatives to amusement park getaways. Children get a kick out of getting their hands into the dirt, while parents are in heaven over the taste of fresh-picked produce.

But it’s not just families that enjoy the experience. Kylie Matsuda, a fourth-generation farmer, loves to go on farm tours when she visits the mainland. "It’s popular everywhere but in Hawaii," she said.

This got her thinking, and in 2005, she started planning Kahuku Farms, an offshoot of Matsuda Fukuyama Farms designed to accommodate farm tours. Kylie Matsuda is the daughter of Melvin Matsuda, who partnered with neighbor Clyde Fukuyama in the 1980s to form the now 300-acre farm.

Tours at the farm, which opened in 2010, take visitors on a tractor-pulled wagon to show them where their food comes from. A farm cafe features food made from produce grown on site.

"I thought it was important to educate the public about farming," said Matsuda. "Nowadays, children think bananas come from Costco; awareness is store-to-table. Our produce is a regular commodity for locals, but they take the tour and say, ‘Wow! I never knew that!’ They get to see all the care that goes into their food.

"I always believed there was a demand for this kind of endeavor."

Kahuku Farms’ diverse laundry list of crops — lilikoi, vanilla, cacao, acai, lychee, mountain apple, lemon, lime, tangerine and oranges, plus more — produce an extensive menu at its cafe. Lilikoi is turned into smoothies, ice cream, dressing, jelly and butter. Some of the cafe’s most popular dishes include a veggie panini sandwich, farm pizza and grilled banana bread topped with vanilla caramel and vanilla haupia.

"I hired a farm chef to create and teach us the recipes," Matsuda said. "The kitchen staff includes my mother-in-law, who moved back from California to help."

Matsuda said she was pleased to find that their cafe draws regulars from the North Shore community.

"These are folks who want fresh, healthy things to eat, and they know we have a good thing going here. It’s nice knowing this is something people are looking for, and they’re really loving it."

While Oahu is far from flooded with agricultural tours, the variety of farms being showcased makes for an interesting mix. And like Kahuku Farms, a number also offer a food component, a smart move since local food sourcing is all the rage.

One especially alluring tour is Madre Chocolate’s cacao farm tour, truly unique because Hawaii is the only place in the U.S. where cacao is grown.

"A lot of people who see us at the farmers market are surprised to see a cacao pod. They don’t know where chocolate comes from," said Nat Bletter, co-owner of Madre Chocolate.

Bletter and his partner, David Elliott, have been approached by national tour companies since beginning their tours just a couple of months ago. Visitors go to a cacao farm (they’ve partnered with Reppun and Kahuku farms in the past), then to Madre’s Kailua chocolate shop, where Bletter and Elliott cover the long process of chocolate making: cracking cacao pods; drying, roasting, cracking, winnowing and grinding beans; tempering; and pouring chocolate into molds.

A big draw: The tour includes tastings, and everyone goes home with a chocolate bar.

Bletter sees much potential in cacao tours.

"Oahu could be the Napa Valley of chocolate," said Bletter, who explained that environment, cultivation and processing dramatically influence the end product, just as with wine grapes. "If different people made chocolate from the same bean, there are so many steps in the process to do differently, there would be a huge difference in flavors."

Though an agricultural tour is no doubt substantial additional work for a farmer already toiling from sunup to sundown, it’s not a bad idea financially, offering a way to diversify the business. That’s a main reason Matsuda wanted to open Kahuku Farms, which hosts both tourist groups and small groups of local visitors.

"Tours provide extra income for farmers," said Pamela Boyer, co-owner of Oahu Agri-Tours and an organizer of Haleiwa, Hawaii Kai and Ala Moana farmers markets. "If you charged $35 to 30 people, and ran a tour even four times a month, that’s more than $4,000 supplemental income for farmers."

Oahu Agri-Tours is mostly geared toward tourists, with a different tour Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. The lineup includes such venues as Waialua Sugar Mill, where Waialua coffee is served; Poamoho Organic Produce, the largest organic farm on Oahu; Kahuku Farms; and Haleiwa Farmers Market during Sunday tours.

Any group, local or visitor, can book a charter tour. "Once, we did a charter tailor-fit for a Japanese high school that took them to a taro farm where they did cooking. They made laulau, haupia and lomilomi salmon," said Boyer. "We do farm education tours and set up work days where people can pick fruit, weed or pull taro. People can become more aware of what it takes to farm — it’s a lot of work."

In the end, that’s what it’s all about, said Matsuda.

"I really enjoy opening my farm to the public, so they can see what we do as farmers and walk away with a better appreciation. Then they’ll be able to see why buying local is very important, why supporting local farmers is so important. It’s all part of the education process."