Farmers in Bumthang are now switching to hazelnut from other crops like potato, barley and buckwheat. Many say growing hazelnut is not labour-intensive as compared to other crops, they earlier grew. They also say hazelnut fetches more money.
Dorji Wangchuk, 51, from Tangsibi in Ura Gewog had planted over 200 hazelnut saplings in his 90-decimal land in 2013. He said his land was left fallow for a long time. He had given up potato cultivation as it was difficult to guard his field from wild animals.
He planted hazelnut after the instruction from the Mountain Hazelnut Venture Project under the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests in 2013.
“Compared to potato hazelnut is easy to cultivate. Animals do not attack hazelnut trees.”
Another farmer, Jampel Wangdi said most hazelnut plants he had planted have survived. “The trees would start bearing fruits after four years.”
Over 330,000 hazelnut trees were distributed to 668 farmers in Bumthang. The Mountain Hazelnut Venture Project has brought around 700 acres of private fallow land under plantation in Bumthang. Distribution center on five-acre land of with a capacity to grow 1.5 million saplings was also opened in Bumthang.
So far, the Mountain Hazelnut Venture Project has distributed almost 3M trees to over 5,000 farming households with a registered area of over 8,000 acres in 11 dzongkhags of eastern, central and western Bhutan.
