AGRI-TOURISM: A RURAL PLANNING INSTRUMENT FOR SUSTAINABILITY OF AGRICULTURAL LANDS

摘要

Agri-tourism is seen as an increasing tendency for providing the sustainability of especially the agricultural areas/regions that are lost their productiveness through the way of adding value by touristic activities. In Turkey, especially in the last 15 years, there is an observable increase in the amount of agri-tourism initiatives. However, agri-tourism concept is still not a planning instrument in the rural planning approach of Turkey. It is a certainty that, agri-tourism concept should have a significant role in providing the sustainability of agricultural areas due to the reason of serious agricultural land loss problem in Turkey. In this study, agri-tourism concept is aimed to present as an alternative rural planning instrument for providing the sustainability of agricultural lands. Through this aim, after the definition of agri-tourism concept, the required mechanisms for agri-tourism planning approach are exposed through examining the examples of agri-tourism initiatives of Tuscany Region of Italy and Lublin Region of Poland. Finally, some suggestions are proposed for agri-tourism development in Turkey.