The agriculture and forests ministry has opened three farm shops in three gewogs of Samtse, recently. The gewogs are: Tashichhoeling, Pemaling, and Yoeseltse. The farm shops were established for the benefit of the farmers.
“Such farm shop will only benefit the villagers like us since the essential food items, farm tools, seeds, and toiletries are all available here,” said a farmer, Tshering Dorji.
Like him, other farmers said they are delighted to know that they can sell their agricultural produce at the farm shop and earn income.
Besides making farm inputs such as seeds and fertilizers available, the shops will give guaranteed market to farmers for their farm produce under buy back scheme. This means, the farm outlet will buy the farm products from the farmers and sell it to the customers.
However, the Department of Agricultural Marketing and Cooperatives said such system is thwarted with challenge since quantity of farm produce is usually less.
Previously, business community in Samtse was not in favour of farm shop as they viewed it as a threat to their business. But now, they think otherwise.
“There is inconsistency and devaluation of ngultrum when you buy things from border towns. Now that we have farm shop here, we do not have to worry about rupee and this will largely benefit the villagers or people like us,” said a businessman, Norpen.
Farm shops in Samtse were built at a cost of over Nu 271,000 and benefit some 1600 households. They are being operated by the Food Corporation of Bhutan. Today, there are 93 functional farm shops in the country. The government’s promise to have farm shops in all 205 gewogs is expected to be fulfilled by the end of 2018.
