The Ritz it ain't. Christina Ast's idea of a great summer vacation is mucking out cowsheds and picking potatoes with her three daughters and their children at Heinrich Winkelmann's farm on the heaths in Lower Saxony in northern Germany. At night, they bed down in the barn on a layer of hay. Never mind the mice audibly scurrying around in the dark or the spiders that crawl into their sleeping bags. "It's the most wonderful experience," says Ast, 47, a health-care administrator from Halle/Saale. "The hay is beautifully soft and warm and it crackles when you move."

"Hay hotels" like Winkelmann's are the latest rage in a nation in which farm holidays have become much more than a cottage industry. Last year 3.3 million Germans spent time down on the farm, up from 1.9 million in 2002. And the Germans are not alone. From northern Lithuania to southern Tuscany, more and more urban and suburban Europeans are opting for the tranquillity, homegrown food and affordable prices of countryside vacations. Some 3 million people flocked to Italian agritourism spots last year, a 20% increase over 2002. It's hard to put a Continentwide figure on the "agritourism" trend, but it's clearly on the rise. And the European Union wants this sector to grow further. Even as it cuts back on wasteful agricultural subsidies that distort prices, the E.U. is proposing to spend €13 billion a year on rural development starting in 2007, with much of that money going to encourage farmers to diversify into agritourism and other businesses. For Europe's farmers, rural chic is more than just a vacation fad; it's a financial necessity.

Farmers constitute a small percentage of the population and an even smaller percentage of the economy. The number of farmers in the E.U. has fallen by half over the past 20 years, from 12.7 million to just over 6 million, and agriculture accounts for less than 2% of the E.U.'s GDP. (These numbers don't include the 4 million farmers in the 10 nations that joined the E.U. in May, 2.7 million of them in Poland). But given the strong attachment many Europeans feel to the countryside, governments have been careful to cushion the impact of the changes to agricultural policies. And agritourism could be a commercially viable way for farmers to earn a living while keeping the rural landscape intact.

Even in relatively wealthy countries, the demand is urgent. In Britain, an average farmer earns somewhere between $18,000 and $27,000 a year, according to Philip Clarke, the Europe editor of Farmers Weekly magazine. If you take the long working hours into account, Clarke adds, that's below the minimum wage. Not surprisingly, a 2002 study by Exeter University found that about 60% of farms were engaged in some form of diversification, ranging from contracting out labor and machinery to running a bed-and-breakfast. "It used to be a question of farmers' wives offering rooms on the side, but now for many it's a full-time business," says Nigel Embry, who runs Farm Stay UK, a nonprofit body that publishes a directory of farms that take guests. Dairyland Farm World, a farm-turned-theme-park in southwestern England, has gone down the diversification route. For an entry fee of $40 per family, Dairyland offers a milking parlor and a "pat-a-pet" area.

What do you need to do to become an agritourist attraction? Rules vary from country to country, and regimes can be highly bureaucratic. In the Veneto region of Italy, farmers providing holidays are limited to hosting 30 overnight guests per night for a maximum of 160 days per year and must produce over 50% of the food they sell to tourists. In Britain, Germany and elsewhere, there are stringent health and safety controls, including fire regulations and rules governing contact with farm animals.

That might scare off a laid-back farmer, but in other places, especially poorer regions, including Poland, farmers are undeterred. Slawomir Bojar, a Polish electronics specialist, got into the agritourism business last year because he was looking for a change of pace after heart surgery. He and his wife bought a 100-year-old property near the shore of Lake Sarag in the Mazurian district in the north. After making some renovations, they now rent out rooms with full board for $25 per day. They're hoping to receive an E.U. subsidy later this year. "This farm became my life," Bojar says.

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nginx/1.14.0 (Ubuntu) "I just keep asking, Why so late?" The Bojars have plenty of company. Since last year, when E.U. money became available, more than 4,500 applications for farm diversification subsidies worth $109 million have been approved.

Others are trying to cash in, too — even if they don't run a working farm. In Tuscany, hundreds of old stone houses have been restored, often with state aid, and turned into hotels or restaurants. "Very often, agritourism is the only way to maintain and restore the old villas and ancient structures that would otherwise be abandoned," says Livia Pianelli, director of Terranostra, an agency linked to the Italian farmers' union.

Even with rising demand, not all agritourism destinations will survive. Willard Biemans, an E.U. official in Poland who deals with rural development, says that, given high start-up costs, "It's a big risk, especially if you take into account that everybody is doing it, and everybody thinks this is the future."

Still, back in Germany, farmer Winkelmann is enjoying the boom. His farm, called Flottwedel, offers guests a hay bed plus a sumptuous breakfast for €12 per adult and €9 for kids between 6 and 12 (j7 for 2- to 6-year-olds). You have to bring a sleeping bag, but there are two newly installed showers. That comes in handy for the kids, says holiday farmhand Ast. "They throw themselves into the hay and roll around to get down and dirty. It's any child's dream come true!" And maybe a few farmers' dreams, too.

• PETER GUMBEL
• The agritourism boom boosts European farmers