Make Agriculture Attractive Again to Achieve Food Security

Making Agriculture Attractive through Agritourism.

Since the onset of the Russian Ukraine War, the world have been impacted in different ways. One of the challenges has been upward rising cost of food prices especially food imported from Europe, more so the involved countries like Russia.

Russia being a global exporter of wheat, the wheat products have shot with a record high and Kenya is not spared either. A 2kg packet of wheat flour used to retail at $1 and now retails at $1.5.

Now with increased cost of food prices skyrocketing, we need to think of ways of solving this problem through achieving National food security; a situation where all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.

Studying the Kenyan market, I realized that one of the challenges we face is that Agriculture has been made so unattractive to Kenyans especially the youth. The youth are abandoning Agriculture courses at alarming rates and one of the biggest Agricultural universities like Egerton University and Jommo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) facing low turn out for the agriculture trainings.

Now one of the ways to solve this program is to find ways of making farming attractive again and one of such ways is Agritourism. Agro-tourism can be defined as a visit to a farm for enjoyment and education. The enthusiastic tourists who enjoy agro-tourism are often interested to learn about various farming activities. Agro-tourism reconnects the urban population to the rural and provides a real experience of agriculture to them.

Agri-tourism activities include milking cows, sowing plants, picking fruits, wine testing, beekeeping, pumpkin picking, etc. It also involves horseback riding, bullock-cart riding, visiting pet farms, swimming in rivers or wells, boating in ponds, etc.

This real farm experience will slowly by slowly impact the love for farming to kids, youths & adults alike. Individuals will be inspired to start something small for themselves and if this continue over and over again, we will start seeing progress in our food security stability.

Farmers also need to be encouraged to use their farms as an experience ground for non farmers. By hosting tours, get together and other events at their farms, they are increasing their revenue from the farm, get connections and also learn from sharing since the more you share, the more you learn.

We at Demi Agritourism farm is starting an Agritourism Program to make Agriculture attractive and inspire farmers to turn their farms as avenues to spread the love for agriculture to our communities. We are open to collaborations and partnerships with like minded individuals and parties to ensure that food security goes back to the citizens and through collective efforts, we will be able to feed ourselves and feed ourselves better.

We are reachable through our website www.demifarms.co.ke, Email; [email protected] or Phone; +254 768 494 209 (Call/WhatsApp/Text).

Enjoy!