You probably haven’t given it much thought but Agritourism is a very important factor in growing the agricultural economy in Nigeria.
Did you know that the United Nations World Tourism Organizations records tourism as one of the largest industries in the world surpassing such industries as oil exports, food products or automobiles?
If you are not absolutely blown away by that fact, it would interest you to know that tourists arrive every 30 seconds in different countries around the world, putting the number at one (1) billion tourist arrivals in the world every year. That number is expected to increase by 60% by Year 2020.
Why exactly should these figures concern us? It’s simple.
The more we encourage agricultural tourism, the more we enjoy the benefits that tourism brings to any country; in this case, it would be directed towards agriculture – a sector with a most promising future in Nigeria.
What Exactly Are the Benefits of Agritourism in Nigeria?
To get a clear sense of the benefits from agritourism, let’s define the term.
Wikipedia defines Agritourism as any agriculturally based operation or activity that brings visitors to a farm or ranch. What is more interesting is Wikipedia notes that Agritourism has different definitions in different parts of the world, and sometimes refers specifically to farm stays, or elsewhere as a wide variety of activities, including buying produce directly from a farm stand, navigating a corn maze, slopping hogs, picking fruits, feeding animals, or staying at a bed and breakfast (B&B) on a farm.
Here are the benefits that can be expected from a growth in Agritourism:
- Increased Spending: agritourism otherwise known as agrotourism or agriculture tourism would undoubtedly inject significant cash into the local economy. If tourists have to visit different locations, they would need to spend money on transportation, hotel, food, and buy souvenirs to take back to their home country.
- Smarter Ideas: one of the benefits of agritourism is the exchange of ideas that usually lead to an improved way of doing things. Encouraging agritourism will bring people from different parts of the world who would share their own ideas with farmers and agric researchers. This can lead to an improvement in the agric sector. Agritourism breaks cultural barriers and encourages innovation.
- Global Recognition of Different Regions: another benefit of agritourism is that it not only puts a country on the map, it also shines the spotlight on states, and local region who do not enjoy as much international exposure. This exposure encourages more tourist visits and may open up opportunities for farmers to gain investor’s attention.
- Job Creation: decent work and economic growth is Number 8 on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as set by the United Nations. Agritourism is a great way to create new jobs for locals. Jobs that can arise as a result of increased agritourism activities include tour guide jobs, hotel jobs, and may even lead to a longer-term benefit such as tarred roads and public buses for easy transportation.
- Promotion of Local Products: usually when tourists go on agricultural visits, they are so excited to participate in activities either because it’s new to them or because they don’t get to do it all the time. For example, it’s not every time you get to milk cows or eat honey directly from a beehive 🙂
At the end of the visit, tourists would usually like to buy souvenirs to take back to their home country to show how much fun they had on the trip or their learning experiences.
- Innovative Startups: what happens when a particular sector starts to thrive? You guessed it! It attracts young, brilliant minds to create innovative startups that further disrupt that sector. A brilliant example of a disruptor is Yours Truly, Farmcrowdy, a platform that allows anyone anywhere in the world to start farming and empower rural farmers.
It’s sort of like how Facebook paved the way for several social media platforms to spring up. A surge in agrotourism would have the same viral effect and would, you guessed it again, lead to an increase in job creation.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agritourism
Hannah Edia is the Lead SEO/Content Development at Farmcrowdy. Send her an email here, [email protected]
HANNAH EDIA
