As one approaches Darjeeling one finds lush green gardens of famous Darjeeling tea on both sides of the road. Picturesque beauty of tea gardens and colourful workers are so fascinating that one invariably stops to see those gardens and workers working. Tourists like to be dressed as in the traditional attire of hills having a basket on back hanging from the forehead. Tourists savor watching plucking of tea leaves and further processing of tea-leaves. If given the opportunity to be the part of leaf plucking operations, tourists do it with great joy. One can notice long queues of tourists’ taxis parked near such locations where one can live through all the experiences in one go. This explains the potential of agri-tourism in India.
With more than 5 million foreign tourists visiting India and more than 600 million Indian tourists making inland tour the scope of Agri-tourism is huge. It is well known fact that tourists visit India to experience the Indian culture which is basically ‘agrarian’. Cohesive existence of myriads of cultures and religions, multiple colorful and bright festivals, natural diversity, are some major attraction for the foreign tourists. And, agri-tourism offers most of these in one go.
Tourists enjoy driving on difficult and rugged terrain to see and experience the hardworking life of common farmers. Tourists take pleasure in milking cow, ploughing field with bullocks, and feeding cows, fetching water out from a deep well, and weeding vegetable field. To see how the cabbage and potato, important ingredients of burger, are cultivated can be equally if not more satisfying than eating a burger. Sleeping under the open sky with fruit trees around and refreshing cool breeze may be just as pleasing as sleeping in five star deluxe suites. A bullock cart ride sometimes provides more pleasure that a chauffer driven luxury car. Separating chaff from rice is as fascinating as solving a Rubik’s cube. In agri-tourism, tourists not only get the glee of scenic and serene ambiance of the village but also learn lifestyle, culture, and religion of farmers. It provides opportunities to visitor to participate in farmers’ daily lives and get satisfaction of living the life of millions of farmers of the inconceivable India who produce food for billions of people. Truly, experiencing agriculture is experiencing the core culture of India, not just one profession.
India is most suited destination of agri-tourism. It has diverse agro-climatic conditions suitable for growing different types of crops, fruits, vegetables, and trees. Most of the domestic animals are reared on millions of individual farms. Farmers are simple and hospitable. Indian villages and farms offer unique experiences. Visit to a farmhouse in Kashmir valley to be acquainted with the cultivation of saffron, and to feed and shear sheep; visiting a grape farmhouse in Maharashtra to see its cultivation, harvesting, and in-house preparation in wines; organic cultivation of wild turmeric by aboriginals in Kandhamal hills of Orissa are the subjects which will interest many of the tourists particularly those who are urban and are from developed country. Visiting a village in Khera district of Gujarat to know and participate in milk production, collection, and its processing, is some thing for which both international and inland tourists will always be ready to pay. We just need to develop such theme based tourism and market accordingly.
What all will meet agriculture tourists expectations? Something to see…like crops in field, agricultural practices in progress, and if the tourists have opportunity to have hands on those practices, tourists are enthralled. Banana tourism in Ecuador gives opportunity to tourists to visit farms, see the crop operations, like harvesting, transportation from field to place of value addition, and tourists enjoys seeing the process and walking along the farm workers. Farm workers are expected to be like tourists guides who can explain what, why, and how of all the practices and can also answer all related queries of tourists. Tourists would be happy in doing something on their own which gives them a visible result or a feeling of accomplishment. Churning curd to get the ghee or butter milk, and shearing sheep are few such experiences which gives an metropolitan tourists more value of their money. Addition of some difficult tasks like, climbing on a palm, ploughing the field with the help of bullocks, walking on hilly terrain, or transplanting rice in muddy fields are challenges which tourists like. And in the end when they return home with local made handicrafts, homemade wines and jams, or self harvested fruits and vegetables as mementoes they find their tour successful and fulfilling.
But it will not happen on its own. It requires niche marketing. It needs to be planned, publicized, and managed. The farm houses needs to be developed so that it serves the tourists’ purpose of being able to see most of things within small distance. Farms could be thematic. And theme may be based on a local festival, season, or some times on popular food like, pizza or burger. For example, a farm house based on the theme of a festival will have all the crops, fruits, vegetables or sometimes livestock which are any way related with the festival. The pizza farm is very popular in west where one part of farm house is dedicated to the circular arrangement of all the crops and animals in pie shaped wedges of chilli, pepper, garlic, wheat, onion, tomato plants depicting various ingredients of pizza. Display of old farm machineries, utensils, bird houses, grain storage structures etc. attracts tourists. Arranging tourists’ visits during the local festivals adds more spices for the tourists.
Marketing and management of agri-tourism entail specialized skills. Joint efforts of all stakeholders like, farmers, local village and district administrations, agriculture department, tourism department is must for the success of such ventures. Easy accessibility, comfortable stay, cleanliness, quality food, security, medical facilities are few pre-requisites for any tourism venture. Development of basic facilities for tourists can be undertaken either at the community level or at the individual farmer level. It is good that our harvesting seasons and festivals coincide with the tourists’ season when more than 70% of foreign tourists lands in India. However, it needs to be communicated and marketed well among tourists.
It is a win-win game for all the players. Tourists get all the fun and understanding by paying very less, get a pollution free environment and chemical free diets, get a crowd free peaceful break from their works. Farmers get some extra money from their main occupation with small investments of their time and their easily available local resources, others get work in village themselves, tour operators get new destinations and new clients, …and hitherto unknown villagers and farmers get recognition of their village and profession. It only requires concerted public private partnership to make it happen. When Rs. 40,000 crores already planned to be spent in this financial year under NREGS only, funds at the village level are no longer a constraint. There are many more government sponsored schemes which can be pulled together to develop infrastructure, manpower, and market for agri-tourism.
‘Incredible India’ campaign is showing its results and the number of foreign tourists arriving India has gone up to more that 5 million in 2008 adding more than 11700 million US$ in our foreign exchange . Number of domestic tourists has also increased with average rate of more than 10% per annum in last five years. Ministry of Food Processing Industries has planned to invest in agriculture production and processing to increase India’s share in global food trade from 1.5% to 3.0 % by 2015, which in turn will help agri-tourism to offer more to tourists. Agri-tourism needs to be integrated with overall tourism strategy of the states.
A beginning has already been made. Increasing number of farm houses offering the service of farm tourism and many more enthusiastic farmers willing to join the bandwagon auger well for the agri-tourism in India. A gentle push in this direction will open many new destinations with exciting experiences at very low cost for the tourists both from abroad and from our own country.
Why don't you experience and enjoy it..
Niraj
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