Food security will not be a problem in Trongsa in case the country enters a complete lockdown. The District Agriculture Sector’s quick survey revealed that 50 per cent of the total households in Trongsa have enough food grains to last for six months or more.
Moreover, the Food Corporation of Bhutan has also stocked essential food items.
As per the Population and Housing Census of Bhutan 2017, Trongsa’s total requirement of rice or cereals for three months comes to around 700 metric tonnes. And currently, farmers have in store around 430 metric tonnes of food grains in the form of paddy, maize, wheat, barley and buckwheat.
“Very impressively, we have about 963 households who said they will be self-sufficient for six months and another 300 households said they would be self-sufficient for two to three months. And FCB has already stocked in the basic necessities for at least three months,” said Tenzin Dorji, the Trongsa Dzongda.
More local farm products are also expected to be available in the market as schools and institutes remain temporarily closed. There are 29 farmers’ groups in Trongsa supplying vegetables to schools in the district as well as the local market.
“We even told the farmers, that in the past one of the problems we have had was that people could grow but they can’t sell so this time we are encouraging them to grow as much as they could with the assurance that Dzongkhag will buy back in case if they can’t sell with the introduction of dzongkhag’s buyback scheme,” he added.
The Dzongkhag Administration already distributed a variety of vegetable seeds to officials and urban dwellers to promote kitchen gardening. Besides, the administration assured all five gewogs of its technical support required to enhancing food self-sufficiency.
At the same time, the district is prepared in case of community transmission of the Coronavirus and, its preventive measures are also in place. The standard operating procedures are ready and all relevant stakeholders briefed. Volunteers from the gewogs will add to the existing human resource comprising police personnel, health staff and Desuups. 15 isolation and 129 quarantine rooms have also been identified in guesthouses and hotels in the district as of now.
Passang
