PART 2 – ESTABLISHING A FARM TOURISM SITE
Establishing a farm tourism site is not simply about growing crops for people to see. It is fraught with many challenges and it’s wrong to assume that it can be developed without spending huge sums. As all tourism attractions are anchored on providing a lasting experience, so do farms for them to become viable tourism products. And the rendering of this experience needs substantial investment to provide the sights, activities, and amenities to create it.
Other successful sites are run by leading agricultural schools or research institutions, which build expertise and introduces innovations in agriculture, and have notable demonstration or pilot farms for practical learning and to show results. The strawberry and high-value vegetable farm in La Trinidad, Benguet is owned by the Benguet State University. A tour at the UP Los Baños campus mandates visits to its plant breeding, bioengineering, and animal husbandry sites, with a side trip to the International Rice Research Institute’s Museum and Learning Center, as well as its rice fields.
Small, hand-to-mouth farmers with marginal farms or worse landless are less likely to benefit directly from this segment of tourism. It is the “gentlemen farmers”, who own large tracts of land, are entrepreneurial and finance savvy, and have access to agricultural credit, farm technology, and people with either farm or hospitality skills who are likely to champion farm tourism. But many small farmers and landless agricultural workers can still benefit from the job and income opportunities created by the growing farm tourism industry, especially if more sites are accredited. Eventually, with support in skills development – e.g., training on sustainable agricultural practices, modern farm technologies, customer-orientation – a better organized farming community, capacity-building in managing a hospitality business, improved ability to develop a business plan which could also help farmers’ organizations get financing, they could also become owners and operators of robust farm tourism sites.
It is the “gentlemen farmers”, who own large tracts of land, are entrepreneurial and finance savvy, and have access to credit and technology … who are likely to champion farm tourism. But many farmers and landless agricultural workers can still benefit from the job and income opportunities created by the growing farm tourism industry.
Showcasing unique and differentiated produce, cultivated expertly, with much care, and with some consideration to aesthetics, such that the site becomes “Instagrammable” and tells a compelling story, is the core element of a farm tourism camp. A flower garden bursting with colors. A vineyard. A major producer of dragon fruit. A coffee plantation producing high quality beans. A top organic farming site. A source of herbs, spices, and natural remedies. It must be a place people would like to see for its rarity, take selfies on, and buy high value produce cheaper than in supermarkets.
It would be advantageous if the farm is within the vicinity of an established tourist attraction (and preferably tours/tour guides bring visitors to the farm as part of their itinerary) so that it becomes part of the tourism circuit. If travel to the farm takes too long, it must have enough features to justify staying there for at least the time it takes go there and to return to where visitors came from. Which leads to other key elements of a viable site.
As the place is being promoted as a tourism site, trained staff must exist to serve as hosts and guides with keen customer-orientation. This is crucial in bolstering visitor experience, making the guests feel welcome and willing to further explore the area.
To make visitors stay longer, many accredited sites have a learning center that provides orientation on, for example, the integrated, holistic, sustainable, and natural approaches of the farm eco-system; talks on the cultivation and propagation of the crops it produces; and walks (or rides in carts pulled by carabaos) around the estate and its surroundings that may have been landscaped to make them picture-perfect.
Some offer farm-to-table dining, or a rural feast of local cuisine. Others have accommodation for overnight stay (to allow visitors a beautiful sunrise view or a morning trail hike or run). Or with facilities and other activities, such as spa, swimming pool, basketball court, tennis court, kayaking, fishing, and ziplining. These not only lengthen the visit, but also increase spending onsite.
Only the farm owner’s creativity, and resources, are the limits to the transformation of a typical agricultural land into a viable farm tourism destination.
Certain external conditions must also exist to qualify an area for farm tourism. The DOT specifies the presence of such attributes, including those provided by national and local governments and third-party entities, as found below, for a property to be accredited:
- Generally safe and peaceful location
- With reception and information center, parking area, dining or multi-purpose area, souvenir shop or mini trading area, restaurant, fire-fighting facilities, wash areas and restrooms
- Farm guards and security personnel
- With accommodation for guests
- With support infrastructure – road, electricity, water, communications
- With safety signages and first aid kits around the property
- Must have garbage cans and follow proper waste disposal management policies
In essence, just as there are standards required for establishing man-made tourism products such as hotels, resorts, theme parks, etc., such are also in place for accrediting farm tourism sites.
About this Research
As mentioned in Part 1 of this article, the author’s clan, led by a cousin with a food service business, planned to help the rural community of their late grandparents by giving them livelihood cultivating crops needed by his business. Starting off with planting in the family farm. With the approval of the Farm Tourism Act, transforming the farm into a tourism site has been considered. Initially, modest facilities are being built for the comfort and convenience of relatives visiting the family farm. Part 2 of this article discusses what is needed to establish a farm tourism site and was written out of the initial study notes on this transformation.
Bing Icamina | Economist & Management Consultant 