Clueless About Buy-Back

The confusion continues – no wonder Bhutan’s agriculture sector has seen consistent negative growth over the years. They are simply clueless what they are thinking, what they are doing and where they are headed.

The Agriculture Ministry DID NOT sell the vegetables to the farmers – that they need to implement a BUY-BACK scheme. In my thinking, given the difficult times faced by the farmers during these trying times, what the Ministry is doing is providing them RELIEF. Unfortunately even that, I suspect, the Agriculture Ministry is clueless as to why they are doing it – whether to prop up the falling prices due to overproduction, or to absorb the unsold production, caused by constriction in the market. Or, simply to offer ready market to the farmers, for their produce.

If the government is providing relief, then it cannot be termed a LOSS. Providing support to the citizens in times of difficulty is not a loss – it is SERVICE.

Another famous coinage of the Ministry of Agriculture is: HUMAN-WILDLIFE CONFLICT.

There have been incidences of thousands of Goongtongs in hundreds of villages over the past many decades, caused by wildlife predation. Villagers have abandoned farm work and have been forced to leave their farmlands fallow. Urban centers are clogged with thousands of migrants from rural villages. Host families in the urban centers are burdened with additional mouths to feed – causing them to resort to unlawful activities to make ends meet. And yet the Ministry of Agriculture insists that there is human-wildlife conflict.

The Ministry is blind to the fact that the Nature Conservation Act does no permit conflict – it espouses total walkover by the wildlife. This is proof that the people at the Ministry of Agriculture have always been clueless about the guiding principles behind CONSERVATION.

For their information, conservation is all about maintaining a balance – a state in which there is equilibrium. It is not about giving primacy to some species over others.

The Ministry of Agriculture’s confusion does not end here – there is another even more appalling – their National Organic Program (NOP). They said the country would go 100% organic by 2020. Less than 1% of the total arable land was certified as “Organic” by that year. This aspiration has now been pushed back to 2035. But that is not the confusion.

The confusion is that the Ministry of Agriculture is actually supplying the harmful synthetic materials such as fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, insecticides, fungicides and rodenticides, to the farmers. In fact since the establishment of the NOP, the KUENSEL reported last year that while the consumption of the synthetic fertilizer has remained stable – the use of pesticides had in fact increased even more - at an average annual growth rate of 11.8%.

This is in total conflict with their stated aspirations for 100% organic farming by 2035. What are they thinking - that is, if they are?