The Farm Machinery Corporation Limited (FMCL) under the agriculture ministry has converted almost 50 acres of barren rocky land to cultivable land at Wangrey in Tangsibji Gewog, Trongsa. This is expected to help Trongsa Dzongkhag achieve food sufficiency and also create a centre, which will cater farming services to the central districts of Zhemgang and Bumthang.
With the land reclamation works complete recently, the project has employed youths hard hit by the pandemic to grow various vegetables in the greenhouses installed in the area.
The team succeeded to plant the country’s largest imported vegetables such as tomatoes, onions, and green chillies. The first harvest is expected from August, this year.
The project director of the FMCL, Jitshen Wangchuk is hopeful that the project will help the district in realizing food sufficiency. “Bhutanese hardly grow such vegetables and secondly it is also insufficient and scarce at the national level. So with the efforts, we are putting here today, we hope to first realize the food sufficiency within the district and to supply the surplus if any at the national market,” he said.
The United Nation Development Program is supporting the project with machinery, greenhouses, and wire mesh fencing to guard the project from wild animals.
“Agriculture products such as tomatoes, onion, and chillies are so important integral part of the diet and largely dependent on import. So this is one way for us to support the government and the community to build self-sufficiency,” said Azusa Kubota, the Resident Representative of UNDP Bhutan.
According to the residents, the barren rocky lands have remained fallow for almost three decades due to human-wildlife conflicts.
“I use to come here since young at the age of 18 to raise cattle. And since then I have seen all varieties of cereals such as paddy, maize, wheat, and millet grown here. But due to wild animals ravishing the yields, people here were upset and stopped the farming,” said Gyembo Thinley, one of the residents.
Aware of the matter, the project plans to build three kilometres of wire mesh fencing which will enclose the whole of the project’s campus.
“The biggest challenge here is the human-wild-life conflict. So to ease this, we will construct fences with wire mesh. The other works such as the arrangement of rocks and stones and construction of more greenhouses remain,” said Jitshen Wangchuk.
On the other hand, residents also feel the project will benefit the community in the future.
“12 households of the Tangsibji chiwog have around five acres of land here. So now with the arrival of such a project, all of their lands have been made cultivable. Moreover, the farm road here is also maintained and some new roads are also constructed. This will immensely benefit the community here,” said Gyembo Dorji, another resident.
The project also has plans to upgrade itself to a regional centre in the future. A centre, which will focus on enhancing the services of farm machinery hiring, capacity building of the farmers to carry out commercial farming, and serve as a demonstration area from where interested youths would be trained in mechanized farming.
The total cost of the project is about Nu 28 M.
Passang, Trongsa
