Ecotourism as an Initiative to Increase Economic Growth, Food Security, and Environmental Sustainability

Indonesia is an agricultural country because the majority of the population is farming. The fertile agricultural land in Indonesia is due to the location of the country in a tropical climate, making the rock weathering process that occurs in Indonesia occur perfectly, which makes the soil fertile (Ayun et al., 2020). But on the other hand, Indonesia currently occupies the top 100 poor countries in the world, while according to the World Population Review (WPR) Indonesia ranks 73rd as the poorest country in the world (Triono and Sangaji, 2023). This triggers environmental damage. According to Laily (2022), environmental problems in Indonesia are caused by underdevelopment. In Indonesia itself, the environmental damage that occurs is very alarming, and can even cause damage to future generations.

There is a gap that shows the potential for welfare that has not been optimally utilized by the people of Indonesia. Tourism innovation in the form of agrotourism is one of the opportunities that can be developed to be a solution to this problem.

Economic Growth

Agrotourism initiates a change in farming systems from subsistence or self-consumption to commercial. It encourages income diversification as it can offer additional income for farmers such as from farm tours, harvesting experiences, or local products processed on-site. This diversification helps farmers reduce dependence on farm produce alone, which is often affected by market price fluctuations.

Increasing the sector will contribute to job creation. Agrotourism creates a variety of new jobs, ranging from tour guides, lodging staff, to managers of restaurants or stalls serving local products. This helps reduce the unemployment rate in Indonesia. Agrotourism can be a significant driver of economic growth and improve community welfare, especially in rural areas that depend on agriculture.

Food Security

According to Gunaratne et. al. (2021), food security is a condition when all people, at any time, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food and are able to meet their dietary needs and tastes to carry out an active and healthy day. To achieve this, there are four dimensions that must be met, such as availability, access, stability and utilization. 

The availability dimension ensures that food is always available and has good quality so that it can be used to meet needs, regardless of how it is obtained, whether from domestic production or imported products.

The access dimension emphasizes the ability of households to obtain food through various means and sources such as self-production, purchase, barter, gifts and food aid. Food access is easier when people have sufficient income or other resources to access food. This dimension is closely related to an individual's occupation, if their occupation generates sufficient income, the easier it is to obtain food.

The stability dimension requires that food availability must be accessible and usable even during food crises. This dimension aims to prevent food inequality during crises such as the shortage season, and to reduce mortality due to inaccessibility of food.

The last dimension is utilization, which includes the use, processing, preparation and storage of food. The utilization dimension is closely related to the needs of each individual in fulfilling their food as each individual has different dietary needs and tastes. In essence, the utilization dimension is aimed at reducing the risk of undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies and overweight.

As explained in the access dimension, food will be easier to obtain if people have decent jobs to generate sufficient income or people have other resources to obtain food. This is one of the roles of the existence of agrotourism, people who have the main job as farmers can increase their income by making their agricultural land a tourism site. Agricultural land used does not have to be in the form of rice fields, but can be in the form of gardens, ponds, greenhouses and others. Communities can work together to form village-scale agrotourism if they own land that can be used. They can open educational tours related to agriculture and farming practices. The existence of this agrotourism can not only increase income but also create jobs for the community. Due to increased income through agrotourism, food security will be achieved. In fact, not only can people access healthy food, but also can achieve food diversification. With food diversification, the risk of undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, and overweight can be reduced. 

Environmental Sustainability

One of the most common problems in generating income for governments and local communities is deforestation, which is usually done to fulfill needs, either by making furniture or building settlements that require large tracts of land. This decision is often made because it is a significant source of income for the government through taxes and employment for local communities. Deforestation does have positive impacts, but it also has the potential to weaken government and community oversight and regulation of forest area protection. This will result in large amounts of deforestation by many parties, making forest growth unable to keep up with logging. 

Excessive deforestation can lead to natural imbalances because the function of forests as habitats and environmental regulators decreases or even disappears. There will be many animal species that become extinct due to habitat loss, or due to predator attacks that prey on them. In addition, the function of providing human needs such as food and medicine will also be affected. This will make it difficult for local residents when they need food or medicinal plants. Based on data from the Badan Pusat Statistik of Indonesia in 2024, Indonesia's net deforestation in 2021-2022 reached 104 thousand hectare. This figure is quite large considering that Indonesia's forest area in 2021 was 1 million hectare (BPS, 2022).

If left unchecked, more forests will be lost while there are other safer and less damaging ways to generate income for the government and local communities such as agrotourism. Agrotourism only requires a small amount of land for tourist support facilities such as toilets, camping grounds, outbound facilities, and other facilities that only require a small amount of land compared to logging forests for housing and furniture construction. In terms of income, agrotourism is able to provide promising income because tourism is currently one of the people needs, with the number of nature tourism enthusiasts continuously increasing. Tourism management also requires workers, so that local people can have permanent jobs. In addition, the existence of tourism opens up opportunities for local communities to become entrepreneurs around the tourist area. The existence of agrotourism also does not rule out the possibility of making people aware of the importance of protecting the environment because of the benefits it has, the management of tourism can open educational attractions for visitors related to the importance of the existence of nature. Agrotourism through attractions and low deforestation certainly helps preserve the environment.

Conclusion

Although agrotourism has the potential to have a positive impact on economic growth, food security, and environmental sustainability, because the majority of agrotourism is located in rural areas, there is a need for good access and transportation to reach these agrotourism sites. Collaboration and synergy between the government and the community need to be improved so that the concept of agrotourism can be truly realized.

Agrotourism does have a very positive impact, it can even be a medium of cultural exchange. However, it should be noted that if the synergy between the government and local communities is not realized, it is possible that conflicts between foreign tourists and local communities will occur, which can damage the image of Indonesia and the image of tourism management.

Reference

BPS, Badan Pusat Statistik, 2024. Angka Deforestasi (Netto) Indonesia di Dalam dan di Luar Kawasan Hutan Tahun 2013-2022 (Ha/Th) - Tabel Statistik. URL https://www.bps.go.id/id/statistics-table/1/MjA4MSMx/angka-deforestasi--netto--indonesia-di-dalam-dan-di-luar-kawasan-hutan-tahun-2013-2022--ha-th-.html (accessed 8.1.24).

BPS, Badan Pusat Statistik, 2022. Badan Pusat Statistik Provinsi Lampung. URL https://lampung.bps.go.id/indicator/60/211/1/luas-kawasan-hutan-menurut-fungsinya.html (accessed 8.1.24).

Gunaratne, M., Firdaus, R., Rathnasooriya, S., 2021. Climate change and food security in Sri Lanka: towards food sovereignty. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 8. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00917-4.

Ayun, Q., Kurniawan, S. and Saputro, W.A., 2020. Perkembangan konversi lahan pertanian di bagian negara agraris. Vigor: Jurnal Ilmu Pertanian Tropika Dan Subtropika, 5(2), pp.38-44.

Triono, T.A. and Sangaji, R.C., 2023. Faktor mempengaruhi tingkat kemiskinan di Indonesia: Studi literatur laporan data kemiskinan BPS Tahun 2022. Journal of Society Bridge, 1(1), pp.59-67.

Laily, F.N., 2022. Penegakan hukum lingkungan sebagai upaya mengatasi permasalahan lingkungan hidup di indonesia. Wacana Paramarta: Jurnal Ilmu Hukum, 21(2), pp.17-26.

Written By Group N1 ESL IPB Summer Course 2024

• Deasy Febriyanti Wanasurya [IPB University]
• Rizky Surya Putra [IPB University]
• Reihan Maulana Nugroho [IPB University]