Farming and tourism are two different socio-ecological systems. The farming system has farmers’ households interacting with the farm’s biotic and abiotic elements and the market for a living.
Meanwhile, the locals, brokers, tourists, and the destinations, both natural and built environments, comprised the tourism system.
The latter components are spectacles and places of experience for tourists, while for businesses and local government units, these are sources of income and revenues, respectively.
With the interfacing of farming and tourism systems, the different types of farms identified with the kind of crops raised by small or big farmers are marketed or promoted by private and public brokers as destinations to tourists, local and foreign.
Private brokers constitute those who invest in the business of serving the needs of tourists. In contrast, public brokers refer to the authorities that regulate the local tourism industry and collect taxes and fees to secure the welfare of tourists and locals.
Meanwhile, the locals are residents who have no direct engagement with the tourism industry but are affected by the presence of tourists who come and go after a short visit.
Examples of this effect are the increase in prices of certain products sought by tourists, the extent of pollution problems resulting from tourism, and related others. But the locals, referring to the farmers in the case of agritourism, may eventually become private brokers if they open their farms to tourists or supply farm products to nearby business establishments like coffee shops, restaurants, souvenir stores, and others.
Technically speaking, agritourism is a commercial enterprise that combines agricultural production, processing, manufacturing, and trading with tourism enterprise to attract tourists to come and experience these activities for entertainment, relaxation, education, and connection with farm life or the natural environment.
Thus, agri-tourism is the commercialization or commoditization of farm spectacles and experiences.
However, a heavy dependence upon tourist arrival makes the farmers vulnerable if they have no other sources of income.
Unlike the other types of tourism that provide market-based products, services, or performances, agri-tourism is feasible only when farm production and the community’s food needs are secured.
This condition is a significant requirement because agri-tourism does not create but only adds value to farm products.
In contrast, those working in other types of tourism drastically felt the impact of the recession or pandemic because they had no other sources of livelihood. The farmers who continued to plant during the pandemic could still eat if they could not sell their crops due to the travel ban and market closure.
While aware of the adverse effects of tourism per se, agri-tourism opens up new livelihood opportunities because innovative and adaptive farmers would eventually become entrepreneurs who not only contend themselves with planting and harvesting of crops but also processing these into more valuable products not only for household consumption but also for the tourism industry. Agri-tourism creates additional jobs not only for farmers but the farmworkers as well.
Given all these features, agri-tourism promotes sustainable and diversified use of farms toward the value-adding of farm products and establishing local food processing facilities. Since it is also about the packaging of all these as tourist attractions, the following requirements have to be present to succeed: agricultural lands and industrial structures, farmers and entrepreneurs, farm products such as food crops and animals, processed and crafted products, natural and built environments as attractions, rural way of life that tourists desire to experience, and so on.
Thus, a preliminary activity to designing an agri-tourism program by local government units, which should take the lead, is assessing their potential and readiness to engage in this venture. They must produce an agri-tourism plan using the assessment results as a section or within their general tourism plan, involving multiple stakeholders through a participatory process. The agri-tourism plan will guide interested local investors and entrepreneurial farmers.
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Author’s email: enriquegoracion@su.edu.ph
