Bhutan: Urban agriculture flops as winter sets in
Within eight months, 35 percent of the 22 groups have abandoned their fields.
By Choki Wangmo
Kuensel
December 5, 2020
Excerpt:
The excitement of growing vegetables as an alternate source of income for the laid-off workers has gone with the long summer days.
A tour guide, Chador, recently stopped farming after his four friends left to drive taxis and start small businesses. He said that the land was initially allocated in the company’s name that couldn’t pay them. “We have resigned from the tour company we worked for.”
“Although I am interested to continue, I can’t work alone,” he said, adding that a group nearby had asked him to work in their allocated land and wanted to share the harvest but that group never came to work.
Chador said that the soil quality was poor and the harvest was bad. A sewerage water from a nearby house leaked into the field, damaging the crops. He cultivated peas but could only harvest about three kilograms (kg).
The coordinator of Changtagang, Hemlal Sharma said that agriculture ministry is yet to replace the two groups who withdrew from initiative.
Without greenhouses, a structure with walls and roof made of transparent material, in which plants requiring regulated climatic conditions are grown, frost in October had destroyed winter crops like spinach and radish. Chador’s group lost about 80 kgs of chillies. He said they were provided with mulching plastic for tomatoes but due to its thinness, direct sunlight damaged the product.
