Baramati Agri Tourism, window to the Farmers’ Life;

What adds to the charm of Baramati are the agri tourism holiday and weekend packages by the ATDC.

If beaches and crammed hill-stations have ceased to excite your holiday mood and butter-chicken and kadai paneer your taste buds, then explore agri-tourism for a change. You can live with farmers, eat village food, soak in tranquility and enjoy a slice of rural life. Tourists are offered edutainment farm tours on cultivation of grapes, sugarcane, pomegranate, guava, mango, chikoo, coconut, lime, banana and other fruit plantations.

An initiative of the ATDC Baramati, agri-tourism is an emerging trend in the tourism segment. Started in 2004, such agri-tourism initiatives are Malegaon, Katewadi, Murti, Jogawadi villages in Baramati talulka are already in operations. “Our idea is to make tourists live the life of a villager — right from milking cows, ploughing fields, bathing in a well to climbing trees and plucking fruits. Also, because directly or indirectly we are all linked to agriculture and most of the people in the country would like to see how their forefathers lived. Most of the tourists feel nostalgic after visiting a farm or working alongside a farmer. That is the main appeal of agri-tourism. Apart from that it is also an alternative source of income to farmers,” says Pandurang Taware, Director (sales and marketing), Agri Tourism Development Corporation.