Farm tourism to entice youth into farming
SENATOR Cynthia A. Villar said through farm tourism, they hope to entice young people to go into farming or agriculture.
After the passing of Republic Act 10816, also known as the Farm Tourism Development Act of 2016, the Department of Tourism with the support of the Department of Agriculture and other stakeholders from the government and private sector have been promoting farm tourism in the past couple of months.
"The reason why we passed this law is because we want to add to the income of the farmers because they are among the poorest in the country. Another reason is we want to attract young people also because the average age of the farmers in the country is 57 years old," Villar, who is also the author of the law, said during the regional consultation on farm tourism at the Park Inn by Radisson Davao yesterday.
She said through the Farm Tourism Development Act of 2016, they hope to develop farms into a tourist destination and at the same time to also include a farm school.
"We want to attract young people to agriculture because this is important to all of us. If we make our farm into a tourist destination and school then it will be more interesting to them," Villar, who is also the Senate committee chair for Agriculture and Food, said.
Aside from enticing the young generation, Villar said farm tourism will also improve the income of the farmers as they are given the opportunity to have a new source of income aside from the produce of their farms.
She said farmers can develop value-added products made from their produce and sell it to the tourists as pasalubongs. The farm school that would be established by the farm owners would also provide an additional source of income for the farmers.
However, if the farmers would want to put up a farm school, they would need to get accreditation for the module they will be using and the instructor who will teach it from the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda).
At present there are 250 farm schools all over the country that are accredited by Tesda. RJL