Mr. Harkirat Ahluwalia, Founder, Citrus County Farms Stays, Hoshiarpur, Punjab, talks on rural entrepreneurship and farm tourism.
I am a third generation citrus grower with different varieties of citrus in my farm, such as tangerines, grape fruit, lemon, and others. I started the farm stay in 2008 in our ancestral village called Chhauni, which was a British cantonment at one time. I have converted my bungalow into farm stay with luxury tents and started hosting a lot of people. The reason behind this move was to increase the income as the same from the farming was not improving and our lifestyles were getting into a better pace and hence the need for diversification. I am working in my farm and also meeting people in the farm stay. It was not easy as in 2008 American Recession started in the time when we were targeting lot of inbound tourists from around the globe, and it was followed by 26/11 attack which was a disaster for the country and tourism. We had to convince the group of tourists from Australia that their safety would be taken care of. This is how our journey started, and we never looked back.
We are very conscious about the quality of service we offer to our guests as in this sector hospitality is most important. We want the visitors to have the memory of their stay here fresh, and so we created outdoor activities such as fruit plucking. I take them for a tour around the farming, tell them how the farming is done, and make them experience the culinary too. We have cycle safaris, walking tours into the forests, good hikes and other small activities in our farm. The accommodation in our farm stay is top notch which is the backbone of any good stay. We created a rapport with the travel agents and built a trust in this business which started spread through word of mouth. We have established a good brand in this sector. Two things we are very careful about are: no use of plastic inside the farm. So we use only glass bottles, wrap toiletries in paper, and we use the best quality material. We have a system to clear up all the biodegradable waste. We have vegetable farm and poultry, and we ensure our place is kept cool. We get fresh vegetables to our guests, fresh juice from our citrus fruits, and they take home some of them. So people who do not want to stay in good hotels have started coming to us. We also get repeat guests every year.
Secondly, we are also very conscious about the kind of people who work for us. We do not want trained people, but we want to train some people ourselves. We pick the workers from the farm and make them skilled from being unskilled. That is the joy we get when we train unskilled workers into skilled ones. It creates a lot of opportunities for the person. In our new farm stay also we picked up people from the farm only. They are happy to work in a healthy environment, get good salary, and status in their community. Hence diversification in agriculture is very important. When you have a love for farming and land, you can do that and also look for an alternative income from the same farm. One of our properties has been taken over by Taj Hotels for running as farm stay under the brand Amar Trails. We have another one in a beautiful valley in Himalayas which is called Tirthan Valley which has a hanging bridge. We can give good employment to others and a good brand for ourselves that gives immense satisfaction. I strongly advocate diversification in farming.
How can individuals with agricultural background explore opportunities in rural entrepreneurship and farm tourism?
This is entrepreneurship when you are doing farming and diversifying in the same farm. If you aspire to become an entrepreneur, you need to have a farm, and if you do not have one, you can work in another farm, get employed there, and you can find your way from there.
What are the benefits and challenges of transitioning from traditional farming to incorporating farm tourism into one agriculture activity?
What happens is when you transform your agriculture farming into rural tourism farm, your income increases. What you may make in one year from out of one acre, you probably can make it in 10 days if you do it seriously. So it is a good way to show people about India, about farming, and your income generated is much better than what farming alone would give you. But you have to keep doing farming and this kind of entrepreneurship.
Please let us know about your venture.
Our new farm stay is Citrus County Firdauz launched a few weeks ago. It is outside the beautiful forest reserve, and you become friends with all kinds of animals like bulls, wild boars, and occasional movement of leopard is also there. You can see beautiful peacocks and pheasants, and you become friends with them in our property. There is no sound or noise pollution. That is why the internet is weak here. We have created our accommodations as top notch ones, with formal dining space for candle light dinner for the guests. The idea basically is to give them everything, culinary, and give them high quality service, food, and accommodation. They have to pay a good price for it. We cannot be cheap here as we have to organise things. We have a villa, suite, and every villa is about 1800 sq ft with private sitting area, lawn, bedrooms, and beautiful toilets in them. The guests can get a wonderful views of the hills. We make Punjabi food here. We do school groups here, schools from all over the country come here and spend a week with us. We make them do farming in our field, pluck fruits, and help in packing them. We take the school kids to a gurudwara with turbans. We provide them high tea experience inside the forest. Our workers from the farm are nicely trained for 3 weeks to cater to the needs of the guests. We have subtle lighting to the villas to enhance their beauty and a swimming pool.
How can farmers diversify their income through rural entrepreneurship and farm tourism initiatives? What are the successful examples of farmers who have ventured into farm tourism, and what can we learn from them?
In rural tourism, you can make use of other ways too. You can do rural tourism. I do farming and rural tourism to earn higher income and also brand my product through my farm tourism brand. People who are venturing into farm tourism should be aware that their income will rise, learn lot of discipline, how to organise things for themselves, how to manage things, and what I learnt in this process is also how to be punctual which matters a lot. Farmers usually have a casual attitude, but once I started doing th is, I realised the value of time. Also how we take care of the guests by looking into small things also matter. These are the learnings I got from this venture.
Can farmers ensure the sustainability of their farm tourism operations while protecting their agriculture activities?
Definitely. For example, I have been running my farm since 28 years, and I have allotted 3 acres for the farm stay and the rest for farming. I can show how I can manage both farming and farm stay.
How can farmers collaborate with local community businesses to enhance the appeal of their farming tourism venture?
The first what we did when we came into existence is to work on how to help the community. Sometimes we intentionally do not grow some vegetables which we buy from the villages. For our cultural evenings, we hire the village folks to perform. These are small things we can do to help the community around us. We can buy milk from them, and other things so they become your vendors. This is the best way to help them and give employment. I have given employment to 3 villages around my place. This is the way we can help the community. We can take care of the local schools also, and I pay the electricity bill of one of the local schools here. These are the small ways to give back to the society.
What are the potential challenges and risks associated with farm tourism, and how can farmers mitigate the same?
Risks are there everywhere. I will not call them risks, but I call them challenges. We have to take the challenge when we promote rural development and entrepreneurship with a rural project. It takes time because we are in the rural area. At times it could also be the advantage. During covid times, the small rural tourism projects were successful as we shifted from cities, and we did not get out of rural areas. They are all self-sustaining. During the lock down, we had our own vegetables, fruits, milk, and we did not have to go out. We realised the importance of these things, and our guests from cities realised the value of these things and how important it is to be sustainable.
What are the financial resources and funding opportunities available for farmers interested in starting farm tourism business?
It depends on how big you want to go. It is not necessary to go lavish. People who are new comers should be modest, make a comfortable farm stay where people appreciate the hospitality more than the accommodation. Slowly you can improve, get good accommodations and spend money on it. But initially do not be adventurous. Keep your challenges and emotions and finances in check. The constraints and businesses can be tricky. I suggest you review your financial situations, and I am against any kind of loan as it is meant for somebody else, and you will never catch up. You have to review your associations and go for it.
What scales in knowledge are essential for agriculture students interested in career in farm tourism and rural entrepreneurship?
The biggest thing needed in this sector is hospitality. We have to get trained with experience and if professionally trained, it helps. My staff are not from hotel management or such sectors, and I trained them in such a way that they are as good as graduates from big institutes. I believe that experience can help you do that, and you can learn faster.
What are the trends and emerging opportunities in the field of farm tourism that agriculture students should be aware of?
There are plenty of opportunities for them. Farm tourism is spreading like wild fire, and everyone who has a farm wants to think about it as part of their other projects. Thus we will have a full cluster all over the country. I had suggested to the PM’s office during covid times that we should have a scheme where we should show rural India to people, and it was the best time too. There are programs like Dhekho Mera Desh. Rural tourism is very good, challenging, but we do not have proper infrastructure like other countries. So we have to look into providing the infrastructure like road, water, security, etc, to help the popularity of this concept shoot up.
How can students engaged in research work and innovation support sustainable and innovative farms stories and precise them?
They can do research on the farm, case studies of farmers who are doing this, and they will find their way. They have to keep working hard as they have good job opportunities in this field. Lots of farm stays are offering internships for lot of people. They have to contact them and learn. slowly their skills will be sharpened in this sector. It is a good sector to work in if they have commitment.
Mr. Harkirat Ahluwalia
Founder
Citruscountyfarmstays
Email: kirat16@gmail.com
Phone:09815077880
I am a third generation citrus grower with different varieties of citrus in my farm, such as tangerines, grape fruit, lemon, and others. I started the farm stay in 2008 in our ancestral village called Chhauni, which was a British cantonment at one time. I have converted my bungalow into farm stay with luxury tents and started hosting a lot of people. The reason behind this move was to increase the income as the same from the farming was not improving and our lifestyles were getting into a better pace and hence the need for diversification. I am working in my farm and also meeting people in the farm stay. It was not easy as in 2008 American Recession started in the time when we were targeting lot of inbound tourists from around the globe, and it was followed by 26/11 attack which was a disaster for the country and tourism. We had to convince the group of tourists from Australia that their safety would be taken care of. This is how our journey started, and we never looked back.
We are very conscious about the quality of service we offer to our guests as in this sector hospitality is most important. We want the visitors to have the memory of their stay here fresh, and so we created outdoor activities such as fruit plucking. I take them for a tour around the farming, tell them how the farming is done, and make them experience the culinary too. We have cycle safaris, walking tours into the forests, good hikes and other small activities in our farm. The accommodation in our farm stay is top notch which is the backbone of any good stay. We created a rapport with the travel agents and built a trust in this business which started spread through word of mouth. We have established a good brand in this sector. Two things we are very careful about are: no use of plastic inside the farm. So we use only glass bottles, wrap toiletries in paper, and we use the best quality material. We have a system to clear up all the biodegradable waste. We have vegetable farm and poultry, and we ensure our place is kept cool. We get fresh vegetables to our guests, fresh juice from our citrus fruits, and they take home some of them. So people who do not want to stay in good hotels have started coming to us. We also get repeat guests every year.
Secondly, we are also very conscious about the kind of people who work for us. We do not want trained people, but we want to train some people ourselves. We pick the workers from the farm and make them skilled from being unskilled. That is the joy we get when we train unskilled workers into skilled ones. It creates a lot of opportunities for the person. In our new farm stay also we picked up people from the farm only. They are happy to work in a healthy environment, get good salary, and status in their community. Hence diversification in agriculture is very important. When you have a love for farming and land, you can do that and also look for an alternative income from the same farm. One of our properties has been taken over by Taj Hotels for running as farm stay under the brand Amar Trails. We have another one in a beautiful valley in Himalayas which is called Tirthan Valley which has a hanging bridge. We can give good employment to others and a good brand for ourselves that gives immense satisfaction. I strongly advocate diversification in farming.
How can individuals with agricultural background explore opportunities in rural entrepreneurship and farm tourism?
This is entrepreneurship when you are doing farming and diversifying in the same farm. If you aspire to become an entrepreneur, you need to have a farm, and if you do not have one, you can work in another farm, get employed there, and you can find your way from there.
What are the benefits and challenges of transitioning from traditional farming to incorporating farm tourism into one agriculture activity?
What happens is when you transform your agriculture farming into rural tourism farm, your income increases. What you may make in one year from out of one acre, you probably can make it in 10 days if you do it seriously. So it is a good way to show people about India, about farming, and your income generated is much better than what farming alone would give you. But you have to keep doing farming and this kind of entrepreneurship.
Please let us know about your venture.
Our new farm stay is Citrus County Firdauz launched a few weeks ago. It is outside the beautiful forest reserve, and you become friends with all kinds of animals like bulls, wild boars, and occasional movement of leopard is also there. You can see beautiful peacocks and pheasants, and you become friends with them in our property. There is no sound or noise pollution. That is why the internet is weak here. We have created our accommodations as top notch ones, with formal dining space for candle light dinner for the guests. The idea basically is to give them everything, culinary, and give them high quality service, food, and accommodation. They have to pay a good price for it. We cannot be cheap here as we have to organise things. We have a villa, suite, and every villa is about 1800 sq ft with private sitting area, lawn, bedrooms, and beautiful toilets in them. The guests can get a wonderful views of the hills. We make Punjabi food here. We do school groups here, schools from all over the country come here and spend a week with us. We make them do farming in our field, pluck fruits, and help in packing them. We take the school kids to a gurudwara with turbans. We provide them high tea experience inside the forest. Our workers from the farm are nicely trained for 3 weeks to cater to the needs of the guests. We have subtle lighting to the villas to enhance their beauty and a swimming pool.
How can farmers diversify their income through rural entrepreneurship and farm tourism initiatives? What are the successful examples of farmers who have ventured into farm tourism, and what can we learn from them?
In rural tourism, you can make use of other ways too. You can do rural tourism. I do farming and rural tourism to earn higher income and also brand my product through my farm tourism brand. People who are venturing into farm tourism should be aware that their income will rise, learn lot of discipline, how to organise things for themselves, how to manage things, and what I learnt in this process is also how to be punctual which matters a lot. Farmers usually have a casual attitude, but once I started doing th is, I realised the value of time. Also how we take care of the guests by looking into small things also matter. These are the learnings I got from this venture.
Can farmers ensure the sustainability of their farm tourism operations while protecting their agriculture activities?
Definitely. For example, I have been running my farm since 28 years, and I have allotted 3 acres for the farm stay and the rest for farming. I can show how I can manage both farming and farm stay.
How can farmers collaborate with local community businesses to enhance the appeal of their farming tourism venture?
The first what we did when we came into existence is to work on how to help the community. Sometimes we intentionally do not grow some vegetables which we buy from the villages. For our cultural evenings, we hire the village folks to perform. These are small things we can do to help the community around us. We can buy milk from them, and other things so they become your vendors. This is the best way to help them and give employment. I have given employment to 3 villages around my place. This is the way we can help the community. We can take care of the local schools also, and I pay the electricity bill of one of the local schools here. These are the small ways to give back to the society.
What are the potential challenges and risks associated with farm tourism, and how can farmers mitigate the same?
Risks are there everywhere. I will not call them risks, but I call them challenges. We have to take the challenge when we promote rural development and entrepreneurship with a rural project. It takes time because we are in the rural area. At times it could also be the advantage. During covid times, the small rural tourism projects were successful as we shifted from cities, and we did not get out of rural areas. They are all self-sustaining. During the lock down, we had our own vegetables, fruits, milk, and we did not have to go out. We realised the importance of these things, and our guests from cities realised the value of these things and how important it is to be sustainable.
What are the financial resources and funding opportunities available for farmers interested in starting farm tourism business?
It depends on how big you want to go. It is not necessary to go lavish. People who are new comers should be modest, make a comfortable farm stay where people appreciate the hospitality more than the accommodation. Slowly you can improve, get good accommodations and spend money on it. But initially do not be adventurous. Keep your challenges and emotions and finances in check. The constraints and businesses can be tricky. I suggest you review your financial situations, and I am against any kind of loan as it is meant for somebody else, and you will never catch up. You have to review your associations and go for it.
What scales in knowledge are essential for agriculture students interested in career in farm tourism and rural entrepreneurship?
The biggest thing needed in this sector is hospitality. We have to get trained with experience and if professionally trained, it helps. My staff are not from hotel management or such sectors, and I trained them in such a way that they are as good as graduates from big institutes. I believe that experience can help you do that, and you can learn faster.
What are the trends and emerging opportunities in the field of farm tourism that agriculture students should be aware of?
There are plenty of opportunities for them. Farm tourism is spreading like wild fire, and everyone who has a farm wants to think about it as part of their other projects. Thus we will have a full cluster all over the country. I had suggested to the PM’s office during covid times that we should have a scheme where we should show rural India to people, and it was the best time too. There are programs like Dhekho Mera Desh. Rural tourism is very good, challenging, but we do not have proper infrastructure like other countries. So we have to look into providing the infrastructure like road, water, security, etc, to help the popularity of this concept shoot up.
How can students engaged in research work and innovation support sustainable and innovative farms stories and precise them?
They can do research on the farm, case studies of farmers who are doing this, and they will find their way. They have to keep working hard as they have good job opportunities in this field. Lots of farm stays are offering internships for lot of people. They have to contact them and learn. slowly their skills will be sharpened in this sector. It is a good sector to work in if they have commitment.
Mr. Harkirat Ahluwalia
Founder
Citruscountyfarmstays
Email: kirat16@gmail.com
Phone:09815077880