Farm tourism is a concept which combines tourism and agriculture by drawing visitors to the farms to experience unique agriculture activities like harvesting agricultural produce, feeding and raising animals, fishing, camping, hiking and even sampling local cuisine.
The Department of Tourism (DOT) recently launched “Future Farms”, a digital campaign to promote farm tourism, one of the sector’s promising gems, and to offer pandemic-weary travelers refreshing environment and new experiences.
“Future Farms” is the fruit of the government agency’s efforts to redevelop tourism products and seek out new types of destinations and activities for travelers in the new normal.
Since 2018, the DOT has been strengthening the development and promotion of farm tourism as a major tourism product.
It supports stakeholders in innovating and diversifying farm sites around the country to include recreational and leisure activities for tourists in addition to food and wellness.
This innovation allows farm owners to maximize the potential of their property, employ more people, and give tourists more destinations to discover and agri-tourism products to enjoy.
The Farm Tourism campaign introduces a series of videos of must-see farms possessing unique characteristics of a ‘’future farm” — innovative, scenic, product-centric, and machine-oriented.
The farms to be featured are located all over the Philippines and include sites such as Diaspora Farm and Resort in Bacolor, Pampanga, Amancio Nicolas Agri-Tourism Academy in Cordon, Isabela, Yamang Bukid in Puerto Princesa City, Palawan, Orchard Valley Farm in Pavia, Iloilo, Vita Isola Leisure Farm in Loon, Bohol, Damires Hills Tierra Verde in Janiuay, Iloilo, Taglucop Strawberry Hills in Kitaotao, Bukidnon, Agriya Farm in Panabo City, Davao del Norte, and JB Nature Farm & Resort in Sukailang, Surigao City.
The DOT said its farm tourism campaign “will definitely awaken the farmer in you as you explore the unique and fascinating farms in the country.”
The DOT earlier teamed up with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to promote farm tourism and help the country’s tourism industry recover from the COVID—19 pandemic.
The partnership with FAO, the United Nations agency that leads efforts to achieve food security and fight world hunger and malnutrition, launched a program to make farm tourism in select areas of the country more sustainable and adaptable.
“By working with FAO, the DOT aims to link farm tourism to sustainable agricultural practices. The objective is to equip our farm workers and fisherfolk with the skills and infrastructure support they need to survive these hard times,” said Puyat.
Farm tourism is a concept which combines tourism and agriculture by drawing visitors to the farms to experience unique agriculture activities like harvesting agricultural produce, feeding and raising animals, fishing, camping, hiking and even sampling local cuisine.
Puyat added that in spite of the pandemic, farm tourism is an “important pillar for employment” and still holds huge potentials to provide food sufficiency and additional income for farmers and fisherfolk.
The three—year pilot program stipulated in the recently signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the DOT and FAO, will have three areas of focus.
They are: enhancing complementation between tourism and agricultural programming in the country; the provision of technical support on capacity building, research and development, marketing and advocacy, and technological development to promote farm tourism development; and the conduct of pilot activities in select farm tourism sites.
“This partnership with the DOT will truly ignite the development and the recovery of the tourism and agriculture sectors in the Philippines, which were both heavily devastated by the prevailing pandemic,” said Ms. Xiangjun Yao, interim representative of FAO to the Philippines.
