Agroturismo

Roles of Agriculture Project International Conference
20-22 October, 2003 Rome, Italy

Environment Module The Dominican Republic

Roles of Agriculture Project

Agricultural and Development Economics Division (ESA) Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

The Roles of Agriculture Project aims to extend current thinking about the social, environmental and economic roles ofagriculture in the development process. For more than three years, the project has worked to establish an analytical framework; to identify the social and economic roles for which the market prices of agricultural activities fail to convey sufficient signals to secure an optimal level of those activities; and to carry out eleven country case studies. The case studies include Chile, China, theDominican Republic, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Mali, Mexico, Morocco, and South Africa. The ROA International Conference, October 20-22, provides an opportunity to present and discuss research results from the eleven case studies and to draw on the lessons, strengths and experiences learned over the past three years for the design and implementation of future work. The country studies consistof module reports (policy, environment, poverty, food security, buffer, social viability, and culture) and a national summary report. This paper has been prepared for presentation to and discussion by country case study team members participating in the International Conference. It is a working draft. The Roles of Agriculture Project is funded through a Trust Fund from the government of Japan.The project is run by the Agricultural and Development Economics Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. For more information on this Project or the Division and its work, see the ESA website at www.fao.org/es/esa.

Case Study: Agriculture's Environmental Externalities Valuation: Agro-Tourism in the Dominican Republic
Alejandro Herrera Catalino and MagdalenaLizardo

Paper prepared for the Roles of Agriculture International Conference 20-22 October, 2003 – Rome, Italy Agricultural and Development Economics Division (ESA) Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Dominican Republic
Abstract This study is an initial effort to analyze the links between agriculture and tourism. It departs from a study of contingent valuation thatassesses tourists’ willingness to pay (WTP) for the enjoyment of agro-tourism and for the existence of agriculture’s positive externalities. In addition, it analyzes factors that could impinge on tourist’s preferences and valuation in the Dominican Republic (DR). Among those factors stand out tourists’ income, localization of the local tourist destination, gender, and nationality. The study highlights anagro-tourist typology’s conceptualization. It also presents an estimation of the potential income from agrotourism. This estimation considers different WTP scenarios according to different farming systems and the existence of positive externalities, as created by agricultural practices’ efficient use of water, soil, forest, landscape, rural culture, and agro-biodiversity conservation. It isargued that a thorough development of agro-tourism would represent an effective market mechanism to measure income that the country does not currently perceive, with a value that varies between US$251.0 and US$364.0 million annually. At the same time, agro-tourist activities would contribute to define a new role for agriculture, promoting sustainable practices.

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The authorsgratefully acknowledge the comments and suggestions of ROA Central Team, participants in Regional ROA Latin America Workshop, DR ROA Inception Workshop and DR ROA Final Workshop. The authors also thank the collaboration of Abel Hernández, Francisco Herrera, Rolando Guzmán, Carmen Alvarez, Victor Viñas, Julio Moya, Alan Ramírez, Robert Mejía, Ellis Pérez, Ana Sierra, Hamlet Gutierrez, Aran...