22AGRITOURISM AND FERMERS DIVERSIFICATION IN SAMARKAND
REGION
Elbek Togaymurodov
Samarkand branch of Tashkent State Agrarian University, Samarkand, Uzbekistan
ABSTRACT
The main purpose of this study is to examine the current situation and identify issues influencing the sustainable development of agritourism in rural areas in Samarkand region of Uzbekistan Increasing the economic potential of the rural areas by introducing innovative activities on Samarkand region's fermers and ensuring sustainable development is essential. Samarkand has extremely favorable conditions for many forms of tourism, especially agritourism. Th study conducted with 110 randomly selected fermers in Samarkand. Based on this data collection and analysis using chi-square and t tests, this study found significant socio-economic differences among agritourism and nonagritourism fermers. The results also indicated that agritourism is not popular among fermers in Samarkand. Finally, this paper investigated the general characteristics of fermers in the region, the current state of agritourism, the economic situation of fermers, and challenges in the development of agritourism.
Keywords: Agriculture; tourism; agritourism; sustainable development; rural
areas.
INTRODUCTION
Agritourism has been discussed as a useful alternative activity to promote income growth on farms and rural development. It has been increasing steadily worldwide and has become one of the most significant supplementary income sources for farmers. It is not a new activity in many countries, having been undertaken since the early 20th century (Busby et al., 2000; Arroyo et al., 2013). In 2019, the value of agritourism activities in the global economy amounted to 69.24 billion USD (FBI, 2020). It is already being practiced in countries including Italy, the United States, Germany, Spain, France, Malaysia, and India, and is providing many benefits to the rural areas of these countries. Agritourism activities have become an alternative and important part of the agricultural sector and the development of rural areas in these countries. Moreover, agritourism is said to promote sustainable development, as it diversifies farming and is
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predominantly focused on improving the livelihoods of the rural farming community. In Uzbekistan, agritourism is a new and innovative direction for development, because fermers and rural communities lack even an initial understanding of this type of tourism (Togaymurodov et al., 2016). Only 0.11% of farms in Uzbekistan have commenced agritourism activities. This is because agritourism is not sufficiently popular enough among Uzbekistan's fermers or medium-sized farms, many of which are accustomed to engaging only in agricultural activities. Moreover, there is little cooperation on the organization of nonagricultural activities.
Agriculture in Uzbekistan is the main livelihood of the rural people, and the sector needs to focus on building potential linkages with other sectors of the economy. Uzbekistan has three types of agricultural farms—dehkhans, fermers, and agricultural enterprises—each of which are legal farms with their own operating characteristics. Dehkhans are small farms with small land areas. Fermers are medium-sized farms and one of the main producers of agricultural products. Agricultural enterprises are small business companies engaged in the production of agriculture and all other farming and agricultural-related industries. The majority of the population, around 50%, in Uzbekistan resides in rural areas and around 23% engage in agricultural activities as their main livelihood (World Bank, 2020). The experience of developed countries shows that agritourism is playing an important role in the diversification of agriculture and the sustainable development of rural areas. Although Uzbekistan has various agricultural sector activities and resources that can be used for agritourism, it has not been adequately adopted compared with agritourism in other countries. The agricultural sector has been emerging as the leading economic contributor in Uzbekistan, and key areas of Uzbekistan are rural, with potential for the development of both tourism and agriculture. Linkages between agriculture and tourism would be beneficial for both sectors. However, Uzbekistan has not used these linkages to maximize the benefits of agritourism as a strategy for creating alternative sources of income for the rural community, including fermers. In the existing literature, few studies examine the interrelated aspects of tourism and agriculture in Uzbekistan and only examine a narrow range of linkages and agritourism activities; this is even more the case in the Samarkand region of Uzbekistan. However, Samarkand is one of the world's greatest cities from a historical perspective, with a rich heritage and potential for agritourism, given that heritage and pilgrimage tourism is one of the most popular forms of tourism (Statistics Department of Samarkand Region, 2019).
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Therefore, it is important to study the existing opportunities in the region.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
A survey questionnaire was the main method that we used for primary data collection. To collect the data, we conducted face-to-face interviews with fermers, one of the popular types of agricultural farms in Uzbekistan. The main interviews with fermers were conducted to determine the challenges facing the sustainable development of agritourism in the Samarkand region. Based on the data collected from 100 fermers that did not engage in agritourism and 10 agritourism fermers, we studied the existing opportunities for agritourism development and the challenges facing the implementation of agritourism activities at the fermer level. In addition, we gathered and analyzed data on the current agritourism activities in the region.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
We found that among these nonagritourism fermers in the Samarkand region, 12% were familiar with the concept of agritourism, 47% had heard of the concept, and 41% had no awareness of it. However, 36% of fermers were interested in agritourism, whereas 64% offermers were interested in other off-farm activities. Table 1. General information on nonagritourism fermers (based on owners) in
the study area (n = 100)
Variables Categories All Including
fermers Interested in agritourism No-interested in agritourism
Gender Male Female 82 18 29 7 53 11
Less than 24 years 0 0 0
25-30 years 3 1 2
Age 31-40 years 24 7 17
41-50 years 30 10 20
51-60 years 23 9 14
More than 61 years 20 9 11
Education Secondary school 25 7 18
Bachelor degree 71 25 46 ® ©
® ¿a® © ® f
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Master degree 3 3 0
Other 1 1 0
Source: Survey results of study areas, 2021
As shown in Table 1, out of the 100 nonagritourism fermers, the owners of 82 fermers were men and only 18 were women. The average age of these farmers was between 41 and 50 years. Most possessed higher education qualifications, most of which were bachelor's degrees. This is higher than the average education level in Uzbekistan, as less than 20% of the population possesses bachelor's degrees. We compare the gender, age, and education levels of the agritourism and nonagritourism fermers. The results, based on a t test of the difference between fermers interested in agritourism and fermers not interested in agritourism, showed that a clear correlation was observed only for education (t = 2.071; p < 0.05). The results indicated that the education level offermers interested in agritourism is higher than that of fermers who are not interested (see Table 1.)
35 30
13 25
^ 20
£ 15 S
z 10
Vegetables & fruits
Livestock
Horticulture
Poultry
Apiculture Cotton & wheat Viticulture ■ Interested (n=36) ■ No-interested (n=64)
Fig. 1. Fermers' interest in agritourism by agricultural specialties (n = 100)
As shown in Fig. 1, this study studied the interest in agritourism activities based on dividing fermers into seven specialties, namely vegetables and fruits, livestock, horticulture, apiculture, cotton and wheat, viticulture, and poultry. This study divided the specialties into two broad groups based on the level of fermers' interest in agritourism. Group A consists of fermers specializing in vegetables and fruits, livestock, horticulture, and apiculture fermers. In Group A, there are a greater number of fermers interested in agritourism activities compared with those not interested in agritourism. These
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fermers independently plan and manage their agricultural production activities and, for this reason, they are attempting to earn extra income by organizing alternative agritourism activities on their fermers. In Group B are the cotton and wheat, viticulture, and poultry fermers. Group B fermers mainly produce for and sell according to government or company orders. That is, this group of fermers operates under the control of the government or companies. Therefore, the level of interest in alternative activities is lower among this group.
Table 2. Fermers' annual incomes in Samarkand region, 2019
Categories All fermers All fermers
(n=110) Agritourism (n=10) Nonagritourism (n=100)
US$ 0 - 5000 23.9% 0.0% 11.0%
US$ 5001 - 10000 34.8% 0.0% 16.0%
US$ 10001 - 20000 87.0% 0.0% 40.0%
US$20001 - 30000 43.5% 20.0% 20.0%
US$30001 - ~ 28.3% 80.0% 13.0%
Mean 19722.7 36098.4 18085.1
Min 2299.5 23861.0 2299.5
Max 63101.6 50000.0 63101.6
Note: 1 USD = 9,350 Uzbekistan som (UZS) (Central Bank of Uzbekistan, 2019)
Agritourism had a strong impact on farm incomes, as shown in Table 2. A statistical comparison between agritourism and nonagritourism fermers showed that the average income of the former is double that of the latter (36,098.4 USD versus 18,085.1 USD). Furthermore, more than 80% of agritourism fermers have annual incomes of more than 30,000 USD. When we analyzed the average income of the 100 nonagritourism fermers and 10 agritourism fermers, we found that the average and minimum incomes of the agritourism fermers are higher than those of nonagritourism fermers.
As shown in Fig. 2, fermers face several challenges in developing agritourism in the Samarkand region. We used a survey questionnaire to determine and analyze such challenges. Based on the survey data, we divided challenges into three groups. Group A consists of challenges for both fermers who are currently engaged in agritourism and fermers who want to commence agritourism activities, as both these types of fermers face similar challenges. Group B challenges are those that agritourism fermers consider to be low-level challenges. This is because such fermers have practical skills in agritourism. However, these issues are important for fermers who are intending to commence agritourism activities. According to the results of the t tests, there is a strong
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association between Group B challenges and agritourism beginners. In Group C are challenges that the main agritourism fermers are attempting to solve by formulating plans for the future development of agritourism. In general, fermers who are just commencing or about to commence agritourism activities should consider all three groups of challenges because they play an important role in the sustainable development of agritourism. For now, however, the main focus should be on solving the Group C challenges, as doing so will increase the propensity to adopt agritourism among the nonagritourism fermers.
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Lack of agritourism training Lack of marketing knowledge Lack of quality control Lack of insurance availability Infrastructure Connection of fermer and tour agency* Connection of the internet*** Lack of agritourism knowledge*** Lack of foreign language level*** Tourism season** Lack of the bank loans Lack of the own money Government policies Lack of financial assistance
(A)
(B)
(C)
■ Interested(n=36) ■ Agritourism(n=10)
Fig. 2. Challenges to the development of agritourism by fermers
CONCLUSIONS
Samarkand has the potential and sufficient opportunities to develop agritourism. The concept of agritourism and the details of agritourism practices are not sufficiently well known or popular among fermers. However, many fermers have an interest in engaging in agritourism activities on to earn additional income. There is strong potential for the development of agritourism activities by fermers, particularly given that the annual income of fermers engaged in agritourism is twice as high as that of other fermers. Thus, actively engaging in agritourism is a good opportunity for fermers to increase their farm income.
We make the following recommendations for the sustainable development of agritourism by fermers in the region. To encourage the sustainable development of agritourism on fermers, it is necessary to increase the knowledge of agritourism among fermers, teach the owners of
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fermers foreign languages, improve their use of the Internet and online services, strengthen communication between fermers and tourism agencies, and organize agro-activities suitable for the tourist season on the fermers. These activities will have a positive impact in terms of increasing the number of agritourism fermers in the future.
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