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Boosting our agro-tourism sector

Published : Saturday, 21 November, 2020 at 12:00 AM  Count : 568

Alaul Alam

Alaul Alam

It is no denial that tourism has become one of the booming economic sectors for many countries across the globe contributing immensely to life and livelihoods. Certainly, Bangladesh has huge potentials compared with other Asian countries to be regarded as one of the high quality tourist hosting countries of the world. But our tourism industry has not been to such a height as is expected over the years despite we are amidst the crown of natural beauties. As of report 2019, the country stood 120th out of 140 countries in regard to the prospect of tourism.

But it is evident that we are on right track as the present government has started adding many dimensions to this sector with a view to redesigning the tourism industry with full-fledged possibilities to the tourists home and abroad. Truly, the corona pandemic is taking a heavy toll on this sector. Countries of the world are experiencing travelrestrictions. Apart from this tourists are not interested to travel other lands amid corona crisis to avert any unprecedented situation. Thus the global tourist industry is undergoing huge turbulence.

In Bangladesh along with foreign tourists almost 90 lakh domestic tourists travel across the country each year. In the last year this sector contributed to 4.4 per cent in the GDP.  Now we are almost at the end of this year but the yearly contribution is nothing but a negative figure due to corona recession.

However, agro-tourism among other branches of tourism can cause an ample opportunity in food security along with regional and national development of the country and amid the covd-19 crisis it can help people in the rural areas offering many scopes to stand financially though in our country the term 'agro-tourism' is still a concept comparatively unheard to the farmers and the associates depending on farming.

Boosting our agro-tourism sector

Boosting our agro-tourism sector

How can we think of an agrarian country like Bangladesh without its full engagement in agro-tourism? Another thing is that despite our land is highly potential and resourceful what are the challenges that refraining us from benefitting agro-tourism? It seems questioning that despite the majority of people live in rural areas maintaining their livelihoods by farming, why agro-tourism is still here in the darkness?

Unlike tourism, agro-tourism defines agriculture based activity that brings visitors to a farm and help them to gather knowledge on different crops and vegetables. Tourists have ample opportunities to visit different places as there are some particular crops which only grow abundantly in specific areas of the country.

On top of that, sometimes national dailies expose successful stories of the farmers in cultivating crops and raising farms.  Domestic tourists can visit these lands and acquire knowledge on the process of cultivation and applying this knowledge they can have further benefits leading to national affluence. Also it offers rural experiences to them from cultivation to preservation along with surrounding communities. It is significantly observed in the country over the recent years that the educated youth are involving themselves in different types of farming. Really it is appreciative. With their skills and education they are doing far better than the traditional illiterate farmers.

Within short time by dent of their devotion and hard work they go on with creating many successful stories that may be the example for others. Many youths are raising poultry, goat, buffalo and cow farms to make them self-reliant and contributing to the country's economy. Another thing is that some enterprises have established local farms and they can be a good source of knowledge for tourists about how one should go about farming in an eco-friendly way.

Nowadays, people are more interested to buy organic foods and vegetables for their families. Not only that many among them have started growing organic foods and vegetables in their rural fields. Agro-tourism can do more contributions as there is a scope to meet the tourists and farmers at the same place, thus exchanging knowledge along with income generating means for the indigenous farmers.

University and college students can spend their leisure time visiting organic farms in rural areas as that will create scopes to share their thoughts with farmers, teach them and gain indigenous knowledge from farmers in return. In the era of speed communications, people love to travel, especially the city dwellers find the places of natural attractions and thus they choose countryside for travelling. Corn fields, rivers, vegetable gardens, dairy farms and many more farming lands add special attractions to them.

Travellers from home and abroad show interest to know how to produce crops and vegetables and in many cases they share their opinions with the local farmers that not only boost selling the produces but also establish a development chain that is very necessary to boost up our products from national to global. Besides, foreign and domestic agro-tourism can help raise awareness among local farmers regarding how to reduce climatic impact on land, water, forest, health, and fish resources.

In fact, there is no alternative to branding our produces to the global community. Our dailies and electronic media can create a very good image about our country along with its indigenous crops and many other produces. However, Shykh Seraj , one of the reputed agriculture development activist is working to introduce our farming and farmers to the global height . Really it is laudable. But unless we exchange our knowledge of farming with the global community, we will hardly benefit to flourish our agriculture, which is our rural backbone.

Finally, to get agro-tourism with full-fledged return it is very imperative to make common people understand that it has every potential to help us achieve sustainable production, protect our environment, create employment. More importantly, to establish a good image along with sustainable rural and national development it is a must to boost up agro -tourism sector.

The writer teaches at Prime University










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