Agriculture machinery worth about US$ 2.6 million are expected to arrive in the country by the end of this year through the Japanese government Non-Project Grant Aid (NGPA). This is the second time the Japanese government has extended such an aid. The first one was used mainly to import goods to promote agricultural development.
Under this project, agriculture machinery imported will be mostly used for raising the productivity of rice. It targets the commercial farmers unlike KR2 grant, which targets the poor communities.At the consultative committee meeting yesterday, the First Secretary for Agriculture and Bhutanese Affairs said it was encouraging to see how the grants were efficiently used.
“I think the outcome or the result that this grant assistance or NPGA project and also KR2 have been implemented properly and the outcome is very excellent and this scheme little bit complicated because that after selling farm machineries to farmers, the government should or must collect the counterpart fund,” said Suzuki Manabu.
A review by the Agriculture Machinery Centre, AMC, shows that the machinery bought under 2008 grant aid were sold at more than 50 percent subsidy and have reduced the farm drudgery by manifold.
“You look at the tractor that we use it, especially not very big tractors but medium tractors that come under NPGA , there is immense capacity areas coverage, big area coverage, which otherwise would not be possible by our manual labour or by animals,” said Karma Thinley, Officiating Programme Director, AMC.
“So in that sense we are now able to cover bigger areas by using these machines which is of course one of the positive trends that we should take it up if agriculture has to go from subsistence to commercial agriculture,” he added.
Products bought with the grant in 2008 include tractor, rice transplanter, weeder, plow and green house plastic. With the grant this time, machineries like power thrasher and mini-combine harvester will be bought. It will be mostly used in southern Dzongkhags.
