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Transcription
Dr Abdullah Alhumaid:
Tourism brings economic opportunity to the agriculture sector, while the agriculture offers unique cultural experiences to the tourist. By intertwining agriculture with tourism, AlUla create a unique sustainable model that promotes cultural heritage, economic growth, and ecological conservation.
VO:
This interview is part of Visionary Realms, an audio series produced by FT Longitude in partnership with The Royal Commission for AlUla.
Meg Wright:
From its desert ecosystems and unique animal species to its UNESCO World Heritage sites, AlUla is a place of great natural and environmental diversity. At the beating heart of this, sits a thriving agriculture sector that brings together heritage and innovative production methods to put AlUla on the map.
Hello and welcome to Visionary Realms, a series that explores new visions for community development, tourism and cultural landscapes. Each episode, we take a close up look at a community or region that is drawing on lessons from the past to build for a sustainable future.
I'm your host, Meg Wright, and today we’re taking a close up look at AlUla. Like many of the world’s most unique tourism destinations, AlUla is working hard to ensure the preservation and regeneration of its agricultural heritage, at the same time as ensuring long-term economic growth through tourism.
So, what can we learn from AlUla’s approach to agriculture and tourism? Joining me to discuss this is Dr Abdullah Alhumaid, Agriculture Director at The Royal Commission for AlUla.
Dr Alhumaid, thank you for joining me. Before we come to the agriculture sector and how it’s shaping sustainable tourism in AlUla, I wanted to start by exploring exactly what it is that makes the region’s agricultural landscape so unique. Could you paint us a picture of what that landscape looks like. And just how much is the region’s heritage and culture expressed through its farming traditions?
Dr Abdullah Alhumaid:
Well, AlUla agricultural landscape is unique due to the amazing combination of natural features and rich heritage. Well, starting from the topography and climate, AlUla’s diverse topography and climate create different ecosystems that allow for a wide range of crops, including arid, semi-arid and sometimes tropical varieties there. But also heritage and tradition.
The region's agricultural practises are deeply rooted in rich cultural heritage. Ancient technique like qanat, or water qanat, used for water management thousands years ago, and still remaining practise, showcase the ingenuity of past farmer. But we are, in agriculture department at RCU also introducing the sustainable practises, modern water governance and sustainable irrigation strategies to ensure responsibility resource management, supporting agricultural growth and water resilience in the county.
As an example of this, the Cultural Oasis project, RCU Cultural Oasis Project is revitalising AlUla agriculture heartland, enhancing the productivity, and also they're saving its legacy by saving the ancient variety of plants in AlUla.
Well, last but not least, the festival and celebration of agriculture. Even to like AlUla Citrus festival, date festival, Summer Fruit Festival, celebrate the agriculture calendar every year and bringing the community together and showcasing the local produce. And of course that will be engaged with the tourist and visitors every year as a nice experience of AlUla.
Meg Wright:
Two core pillars of AlUla's tourism strategy are economic and social development, and also the conservation of heritage and culture. So what role does the agricultural sector play in supporting this vision? How are you bringing agriculture into tourism?
Dr Abdullah Alhumaid:
Agriculture plays pivotal role in supporting AlUla vision for economic and social development, as well as conservation of heritage and culture. Well, the integration is clear there. The integration with tourism, agriculture is central to AlUla vision of becoming a global hub for cultural heritage and ecotourism.
Again, we also introducing the innovation and equality, RCU sustainable agriculture strategy. Promote high quality products, innovation, farming methods, attracting tourists and enhance economy opportunity for the local. All this happen with, of course, with a high level of community involvement, engaging the local farmers in tourism activities help share AlUla agriculture stories with visitors, with tourist, and fostering economic diversification and skill development in the county.
Maybe it's worth to mention also there is a combination. There is initiatives that have been initiated by the RCU, which call it educational initiatives. And this is actually focusing more in training farmers and also training the local community and engaging the tourists and visitors in this type of training just to let them understand the stories of agriculture in AlUla.
Meg Wright:
I’m curious, what kind of experience do you hope tourists will have when they visit AlUla? If they have spent time exploring this beautiful agricultural landscape, what kind of impression do you hope they’ll leave with?
Dr Abdullah Alhumaid:
I really want the visitors, tourist when they leave AlUla, they feel that the AlUla, they taste AlUla through the practises, through the daily practises and also touch the land. See how the farmers and AlUla residents are attached to their farms, and really want them to left with this impression of how these people is very attached with their land.
Meg Wright:
It sounds like forming those connections is a crucial part of this experience - for both residents and visitors. How are you engaging with local communities to connect with tourists? Can you share any examples with our listeners of particular products and practices that are being showcased across the region to visitors?
Dr Abdullah Alhumaid:
Yeah, engaging with the local community is critical for connecting with tourists and showcasing AlUla agriculture heritage. But I will summarise this in three points: First of all, the cultural experience. Agriculture offers tourists a unique way to experience AlUla culture and heritage through farm visits, festivals and even local farmers markets in AlUla.
Second is economic benefits. Of course events like Citrus Festival and Date Festival, Summer Fruit Festival actually draw thousands of visitors and tourists posting the local businesses, and also the agriculture economy. It's a good, it's an interdependent relation between the tourist and tourism and agriculture.
And third point is that ecotourism growth, or the growth of ecotourism, provides farmers with a new economic opportunity such as to transfer their farms as small hotels or allowing the farmers to benefit from increased tourist activity in the county.Here we're talking about agritourism of course.
Meg Wright:
And are you building any specialised facilities or infrastructure to support the region’s agricultural growth?
Dr Abdullah Alhumaid:
RCU is committed to developing a specialised facility and infrastructure to support agricultural growth. As I told you before, it's an essential part of the GDP of the economy of AlUla. So there is a commitment from RCU to invest in infrastructure, and we're talking here, based on the agricultural strategy of AlUla. That's including developing infrastructure such as cold storage, laboratories, composting facilities, agriculture farmers hubs for sorting and packing and marketing the local produce as well.
Of course, most of this infrastructure, it's already there and some of it's on the path, but there is also another entity such as Peregrina Centre. Peregrina Centre, more focusing on the downstream of Peregrina production. So after harvest, the Peregrina Centre is a centre when focusing more in the cosmetics comes from Peregrina products, and it's a private company and profit company as well, that's started or initiated by RCU.
But at the other hand we have the agriculture centre or the Farmer Services Centre. The centre is the operational arm of the agriculture sector actually. It's providing the technical support for the farmer, ensuring the sustainable practices and market and also ensuring and controlling the biosecurity of agriculture area, and the county as well.
Meg Wright:
I wonder too, could you tell me a little bit about what Peregrina is because a lot of listeners from outside AlUla may not be familiar with it. Perhaps you could give us a short introduction?
Dr Abdullah Alhumaid:
Peregrina is very unique trees, it's a native species in AlUla. There is two types of Peregrina, which is Peregrina and Oleifera. The Indian variety, we call it Oleifera and the Arabian variety, it's called Peregrina. It's a wild tree that's being used hundred years ago as a tree for creating cosmetics, perfumes, oil and all these type of cosmetics. And here in AlUla we are more focusing in the Arabian species, which is part of the local products. And that's why Peregrina Centre is more investing in this crops and has really good deals with a lot of famous cosmetic firms all around the world to provide them with oil and even the seeds for the perfumes.
Meg Wright:
I imagine that this must be a real draw for a lot of tourists who may not have known that Peregrina comes from this region, or what its cultural importance is.
Dr Abdullah Alhumaid:
Part of it actually, when we are talking about the cultural experience, it's part of it. When we take the tourist through this experience to introduce them to the Peregrina itself. How we collect the Peregrina, from where this Peregrinas comes, how we will do the processing, the harvest, the after harvest processing, and also end up with the oil or even end up with the perfumes at the end of the downstream of the value chain.
Meg Wright:
And finally, to bring this back to sustainability: what steps are you taking to ensure that the agricultural sector is sustainable in the face of increased tourist activity?
Dr Abdullah Alhumaid:
Well, let's agree first that 80% of the water resources that been used by agriculture. This is widely, actually, this is globally and AlUla is not exception. 80% of water resources that used by agriculture as irrigation water. That gives us a responsibility to include, or to create water conservation, a specialised programme for water conservation and management to ensure sustainable use of water across the agriculture and tourism sector.
Again, also not only water, but also the biosecurity is very important essential there, that pest management, environmentally-friendly approach in AlUla date, palm integrated pest management, project product crops and promote sustainability also. The insect and pathogen control in AlUla is a very essential part and integrated between tourism and agriculture, to ensure the sustainability in agricultural sector, and also to ensure the safety of the tourist in AlUla.
Meg Wright:
Absolutely. You’ve painted a very vivid picture of AlUla’s agricultural sector, and one that will work alongside the tourism sector for years to come. Dr Abdullah Alhumaid, thank you for joining me today.
Dr Abdullah Alhumaid:
Thank you Meg, and I hope to see you soon in AlUla.