Farmers to be sent abroad on study tours

With a budget of Rs10 crore, the state agriculture department plans to send around 1,000 farmers from Maharashtra for study tours to foreign countries. A new addition to the bunch of farmers would be farmers involved in agri-tourism business.

Agri-tourism is a comparatively young business in the state compared to other countries like Australia or New Zealand and to learn from these stalwarts, Maharashtra State Agriculture and Rural Tourism (MART) has proposed that farmers involved in agri-tourism be included in annual foreign study tours.

The demand put up by MART to the state agriculture department   was accepted by commissioner of agriculture, Umakant Dangat. Every year, the department plans a foreign study tour for farmers, and this year, Dangat has decided to give preference to agri-tourism farmers in the next visit.

Vijay Zoal, director–secretary of MART, told DNA, “We had submitted an application to the commissioner of agriculture and he accepted our request. We wish that these farmers who are new in this business should learn from the experts. This will improve the quality of this business and will generate good revenue for the state too.”