Elite governance of agritourism in the Philippines

Abstract

Agritourism, particularly in the West, is imagined to be an organic assembly of family farms driven by urban middle class demand for new rural tourism experiences. In the developing world, it is increasingly advocated as a rural development tool with the promise of uplifting the lives of small farmers in sustainable ways. We challenge the assumption of the farm family at the helm of agritourism development, advocating instead for a more complex understanding of agritourism governance. We argue that agritourism involves multisectoral governance networks that are subject to the political economic realities of where these networks are situated. Thus, agritourism may endure the same social inequalities one would find in other rural development initiatives in the Global South. Agritourism in the Philippines is a case in point. Based on qualitative research, our findings show that agritourism in the Philippines is driven by a complex elite network involving state and private entities that are engaged in patronage politics. The uneven power dynamics associated with this governance arrangement create conditions that favor old and new landed elites and exclude marginalized small farmers, contradicting any official statement that promises inclusive rural development.

Keywords:

• Agritourism
• farm tourism
• patronage politics
• tourism governance
• the Philippines

Notes

Disclosure disclosure

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Rural tourism is a broader concept that encompasses agritourism, farm tourism, ecotourism and nature tourism.

2 Agritourism includes “farm stays, bed-and-breakfasts, pick-your-own produce, agricultural festivals, [and] farm tours for children” (McGehee & Kim, 2004, p. 162). We conflate the term agritourism with “farm tourism”, a term commonly used in the European context.

3 Lukes (2005) further develops Dahl (1958) and Bachrach and Baratz, (1963, 1970) by advancing that power can also be exercised latently by “influencing, shaping or determining [an individual or group’s] very wants” to prevent conflicts from arising at the outset (p. 27)—the three-dimensional view of power. We imagine this kind of power manifesting in rural and agritourism governance, but we have yet to see indications of this manifesting in the Philippine case.

4 Information obtained from the Philippine Statistics Authority (psa.gov.ph). Note that rural population does not equate to agricultural population, as the former may not always depend on agricultural livelihoods.

5 The average farm size in the Philippines is around two hectares, with close to 70% of the total number of documented holdings attributed to farms with less than 2 hectares (FAO, 2010). We also note that many Filipino small farmers either do not own land or have insecure/informal tenure arrangements.

6 Friars are members of religious orders of men.

7 A Torrens is a system of land registration that guarantees an indefeasible proof of ownership to those included in the state’s register of land holdings (Montefrio, 2014). Cadastral laws are laws pertaining to the measurement, valuation and ownership of land.

8 Anonymised to protect identities of agritourism enterprises.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marvin Joseph Fonacier Montefrio

Marvin Joseph F. Montefrio is an Assistant Professor of Social Science (Environmental Studies) at Yale-NUS College, Singapore. His main research interest is critical development studies, with particular focus on the political economy/ecology and cultural politics of agriculture and food sustainability in Southeast Asia. Email: [email protected]

Harng Luh Sin

Harng Luh Sin is an Associate Professor in the School of Tourism Management at Sun Yat-Sen University, China. Her research interests revolve around the mobilities of people – in the broad spectrum from tourism to migration, as well as the mobilities and fluidities of abstract ideas such as moral and social responsibilities, ethics, and care (at a distance) and how these translate through discursive platforms like social media and into real practices on the ground. Email: [email protected]