Since time immemorial, Bhutanese have been practising subsistence farming. And agricultural officials say it is about time that agriculture in Bhutan transforms for good. The Renewable Natural Resources (RNR) enterprise development unit of the Agriculture Ministry is proposing a concept – agriculture economic zone to transform agriculture in the country.
The unit presented the concept at the Agribusiness Forum held in the capital yesterday. The concept looks at commercialising agriculture.
The concept of agriculture economic zone focuses on identifying and grouping the Dzongkhags or gewogs to grow crops that they have the potential to go commercial.
“Though the government is trying to do lots of things, putting in a lot of investment and every stakeholder is trying to do the best but it is not moving forward. So we are thinking that we need to do something with the agriculture sector, to see where things are going wrong. We cannot just treat this symptomatically meaning that if there is a problem with wildlife, we try to treat the wildlife problem and if there is a problem with irrigation we try to do some irrigation channel construction to get water to the farmers. But I think if you do in a very bit and pieces this doesn’t seem to be bringing in much growth or development. So in the agriculture economic zone what we are trying to do is we are trying to put in the whole factors of production- the land, labour and capital together inside that zone to make it faster, to speed up development,” shared Tshewang Tashi, the Dy. Chief Planning Officer with RNR Enterprise Development at the Agriculture and Forests Ministry.
He added that the country’s import of food items would decrease if this concept is materialised.
Despite being an agricultural society the country’s dependence on import of food items is heavy. Bhutan imported food items worth more than Nu 3bn in between January and June last year. The RNR Enterprise Development unit will be presenting the concept to the Cabinet soon.
Phub Gyem
