Sudipta Dev – Mumbai
Agri Tourism Development Corporation (ATDC), has been established by Pandurang Taware, who himself hails from a farming family. Today covering as many as 200 villages in rural Maharashtra, the concept has been catching the attention of farmers and tourism practitioners who have come from Bangladesh, Africa, and the United States, UK, almost 14 countries to learn from him. “In many regions across the globe, farmers are recognising the need and desire to diversify their farm products and supplement their agriculture income, with an agriculture economy that has decreased to just two per cent or remained stagnant for last 10 years, farmers across India have tremendous opportunity to diversify their list of products and service offerings with agriculture tourism. Agri tourism increases the potential for higher margins on farm sales of value added products and services,” said Taware.
In the next five years, that is 2014- 2019, ATDC has plans to establish Agri Tourism Centres throughout India. “Starting with village Palshi in Baramati, we will establish local Agri Tourism Guiding Centres as extension centres for our organisation. Within two to three years, the staff and systems for these centres will be established enough to function as independent agri-tourism centre of that particular state,” he stated, adding that, Agri Tourism India acts as an umbrella organisation that clusters and represents 113 so called Agri Tourism Centres, which are operated by local farm entrepreneurs and employees, and promotes their products in the target markets. “The initiative provides training and capacity building for farmers, local guides and communities in the areas of small enterprise establishment and tourism product development. Since the year 2005 training was provided to over 1,500 farmers,” added Taware.
He pointed out that agri tourism attracts urban tourists to rural villages for a form of relaxation that follows the growing trend of tourism that is both educational and recreational. It is another option for farmers wanting to diversify their farming operations that will help bring more economic activity to rural areas of India.
ATDC’s system includes training and capacity building service to farmers making it easy for rural villagers to start and operate the agri tourism centre in their village. In addition to helping people replicate his idea, Taware has set up Baramati Agri & Rural Tourism Training & Research and Development Centre at village Palshi, Baramati, in Maharashtra.
