09/15/2008 15h19
Activity generates US$ 920.3 thousand in revenues a year
Gazeta Mercantil - 09/15/2008
It's been long since farmers' only source of income was agriculture. A great part of them complements their income opening their gates to visitors for tourist activities. According to estimates of the Brazilian Association of Agricultural Tourism (Abraturr), nearly 50% of the income farmers dedicated to tourism make comes from the art of receiving people in their properties. Some get an even greater income, and their crops and hers have been left to a second plan. They started dedicating themselves entirely to agricultural tourism. Crops and herds are only kept to guarantee the bucolic landscape of the rural area. According to the vice-president of the Association, Andréia Roque Junqueira de Arantes, for a farm to open its gates to the tourists, "it only takes making an adaptation to its premises". Agricultural tourism was developed in the Brazilian fields nearly 30 years ago in Lages, in the southern region of the state of Santa Catarina. Today, besides complementing the budget of the producer, agricultural tourism contributes to gather families who, in search for resources, used to spread searching for jobs in the cities. The new generations that almost always used to leave the farms to try their life in the city are moving in the opposite direction. It is the children of the first undertakers of the field who run that agribusiness. São Paulo Association of Agricultural Tourism (Abraturr SP) was the last one of the fourteen state associations to be created in Brazil. The delay did not prevent the São Paulo Association from becoming the biggest one in the country. It has 1,100 agricultural tourism undertakings registered, and such undertakings are divided into equestrian tourism, history tourism, family agriculture tourism and pedagogical rural tourism. Based on still anecdotal estimates, Abraturr SP calculates that the producers of the state make nearly R$ 1.5 million (US$ 920.3 thousand) a year and that without the proper incentive from the government.
