ATOI is a world-wide association of tour operators that specialise in the business of agricultural travel. Being promoted as farm tourism, agriculture tours help farmers keep up with developments in global agricultural technology, trade, and economic trends. The organisation had its beginnings with a Europebased group called the International Green Ring, founded in 1963. This group joined forces with another world-wide organisation in 2000 to form Agricultural Tour Operators International, with 70 members in 55 countries. Vinay Marwah is a founder member of ATOI. A pioneer in promoting farm tourism in India, Vinay and his travel agency Uday Tours specialise in bringing in chartered groups of farmers from Europe, Australia and other countries here. He spoke to Ranjeni A Singh about these farmers' interest in India's agricultural activities and their role in promoting rural tourism.

Global farmers: With the trends toward globalisation of agriculture, reduction in protectionism and freeing up of international trade, it is becoming more difficult for many farmers to maintain their competitiveness and profitability. Technology never stands still and unless farmers are kept up to date with the current trends they may well be left behind. Farmers must recognise and understand the technological, political, and trading threats and opportunities which come about through the greater globalisation of agriculture. Travel gives an understanding of the many issues involved. The impact of agriculture on the environment & civilisation must be recognised, along with the role of farming in feeding the ever increasing population. ATOI members actively promote and facilitate travel for farmer groups, agriculturalists, trade and political representatives to help them study and understand these issues. ATOI tour operators also cater for the farming people who wish to mix business with pleasure, by providing opportunities for them to visit and talk to their industry counterparts abroad, whilst enjoying the scenic, leisure or cultural experiences that the respective host countries may have to offer.
Farm/rural tours: The world over, farm tourism is a very popular concept providing a delightful opportunity to tourists to enrich their lives with nature and adventure and at the same time instilling pride amongst farmers. The geographical and cultural diversity of our country offers tremendous scope for India to promote farm or rural tourism. By farm tourism we don't mean simply visiting any village or pitching tent in a field. The rural tourism that ATOI members promote are tours for farmers and agriculturalists who visit different countries to learn about agro-technologies and practices as well as experience rural lifestyles. It could be Sugar tours, wine and meat tours, strawberry tours, poultry tours etc. The trend is fast catching up in India too. We have lots of Indian farmers going abroad on such tours.
Activities: We tie up with local panchayats who help us identify farmers who who will be able to host a group of say 30 farmers farmers from Europe. For example, in our wine and meat tours, we have tied up with some wine makers in Nasik and Baramati. We have also tied up with abattoirs and poultry farms in Aurangabad. The 14-day tour includes visits to vineyards, stay at farm houses and visit to Ellora & Ajanta Caves and other tourist attractions in Mumbai, Jaipur, Agra and Delhi.
Curious Farmers: Farmers from Germany, Holland, France Italy and Australia are very keen to know about Indian farming techniques. Chartered groups from India also visit farms in these countries. On an average, ATOI member-countries receive about 40,000 visitors in a year. In India, this is still very nascent. We get around 500 overseas visitors.
Bottlenecks: We have all reasons to feel happy when we have a good tourist season. We all know that our hotels don't have enough rooms to cater to the deluge of visitors. Because of this we have had to face lots of problems as hotels have been playing pranks by hiking tariffs at the very last minute when the charters have already arrived. Our foreign visitors don't take kindly to room tariffs being raised at such a short notice. Most often the tourists then think that the travel agents are taking them for a ride. I feel that the government should do something to check these unscrupulous trade practices of some hotels.