Agri Tourism Development Corporation, India

Finalist, Community Benefit Award

Founded in 2005 by Pandurang Taware ,entrepreneur and descendant of a farming community, Agri Tourism Development Corporation (ATDC) is a company that facilitates agricultural tourism in the Indian state of Maharashtra. With a stagnating Indian agricultural industry, farmers across Maharashtra are looking at agri-tourism as a means of diversifying business opportunities and securing a viable livelihood.

Following a phase of research and an initial pilot programme in the village of Baramati in 2007, ATDC now has 500 trained farmers and 52 agri-tourism locations across the state of Maharashtra. Since the inception of the programme, farmers across the state have experienced a 25% growth in their income.

ATDC offers farmers free-of-charge agri-tourism training programmes which equip them with the technical knowledge they need to diversify their products and establish small-holding tourism ventures. ATDC advocates a policy of employing local youth in its agri-tourism centres and specifically contracts women for food preparation services through organised Women Self Help Groups. In an area where nearly half the village population do not have any relatives in the same village, ATDC's concept is pioneering in the way it is addressing the migration of rural youth to urban centres. ATDC has established close networking links with Maharashtra state and has been instrumental in securing a preferential loan policy for agri-tourism farmers from the Pune District Cooperative Bank. Furthermore, it pools the farmers' marketing activities and organises an award programme for its agri-tourism centres.

With agriculture becoming a more strenuous and less profitable sector for the majority of the Indian population, Agri Tourism Development Corporation has developed a concept that is leading the the way towards sustainable livelihoods for many farmers and their families.