Agri Tourism – A Concept and Working Model for Earning Learning and Fun

Abstract

Purpose – Agriculture was the backbone of Indian Economy some decades ago. Around 85 percent of the population was directly or indirectly dependent on Agriculture and almost 26 percent of India's GDP comes from Agriculture. 90 million farmers are dwelling in 6.25 lac villages producing more than 200 MT of food grains feeding the country, but in the scenario now has the percentage of people depending on agriculture is coming down. Their contribution is more secondary and migration to the urban area in search of livelihood is increasing. This type of growth is not good for our economy. In this paper we have attempted to analyze the possibilities of using Agro-Tourism as a tool for rural Entrepreneurship and retaining the rural population by augmenting the income and in turn containing the migration of poor to the cities, which is adding to the problems of exploding cities    .

Findings – Many of our educated youth, forced to migrate to cities on account of lack of opportunities in rural areas, are really interested to go back to rural or remote area and setup a business. There are scores of urban people are interested in visiting eco-friendly tourism spot.  Agro-Tourism holds the key to many of our rural problems of lack of opportunities and urban problems of overcrowding and consequent on civic amenities. Since the Agro – Tourism as workable alternative solution has remained unexplored; initiatives by govt. are not up to the mark.

Practical implications -The study clearly analyzes the possibilities of Agro-Tourism as a solution for Rural Development. Our Government can use Agro – Tourism for promoting rural entrepreneurship, which has the potential to augment the earnings of farmers by better deployment of the land assets more profitably and reduce urban problems.