Splendid Incompetence

It has finally happened – the Ministry of Agriculture, Royal Government of Bhutan has, after close to half a century, finally begun to make a hazy sense of the difference between the terms “Buyback” and “Incentive”. You can now get a sense of why 50% of RCSC’s top bureaucrats have been elected to be put to pasture. I say that it has to be 95% and not 50%, that needs to be “managed out”.

The country’s agriculture sector is in the doldrums because the bureaucrats at the Ministry of Agriculture have no idea what they are saying – even worst, they are clueless as to what they are doing, or not doing.

Can you imagine confusing “Buyback” for “Incentive”, that too for many decades? I got so frustrated at the mindlessness of the Agriculture Ministry that I blogged on the subject on June 6, 2020 titled “Buyback: The Miss-Coined & Misunderstood Concept” – please read at the following:

https://yesheydorji.blogspot.com/2020/06/buyback-miss-coined-misunderstood.html

Ofcourse other Ministries are no less incompetent – but the Ministry of Agriculture takes the cake. In a concise form, look at few of the following:

CORDYCEPS SINENSIS

While the Tibetans across the boarder freely walked over and plundered billions worth of the pricey Cordyceps from our highlands for over a century, the Bhutanese people were banned from harvesting it - spanning many decades. Only in 2004 its collection was allowed! I can guarantee you that the ban was put in place for some truly idiotic reason – such as sin - not realizing that by the time the amalgamation turns into Cordyceps – they are completely dead and lifeless things.

TIMBER

Bhutan claims to have 71% forest coverage – and yet in 2019 Bhutan imported Nu.3.00 billion worth of timber from outside the country. This in the face of our own mismanaged forest stand rotting and degrading the quality of our timber stock. Billions worth of revenue is rotting in our forests while sucking up ground water and causing water shortage in the land of water plenty. And I am told that the Ministry of Agriculture has the largest number of officials who are PhD certified.

MEDICINAL HERBS

One of the names by which Bhutan was known was “Lhojong Menjong – Southern Country of Medicinal Herbs”. We are rich in a large variety of medicinal herbs – we can earn billions from harvesting them and marketing them to India and the third countries. But we will not do this – instead, we will place a ban on their harvest and collection, and allow it to rot away – like our timber – year after year.

CHILLIES

The Bhutanese people consume chillies for breakfast lunch and dinner - we even snack it. And yet, the Ministry of Agriculture is so incompetent that they have not been able to help Bhutanese farmers produce even one produce of daily consumption - the chillies. We import hundreds of millions worth of chillies.

PESTICIDES/FERTILIZERS

The Ministry of Agriculture announced their new date of 2035 – the year by which they promise to convert Bhutan into a country that will achieve 100% organic farming. And yet, even today the Ministry officially distributes none-organic pesticides and fertilizers to farmers. The shameful truth is that the officials at the Ministry appears to be clueless about what the global standard is – to be certified as truly “organic”.

GOONGTONGS

The Ministry of Agriculture and their incompetence is a direct cause for the creation of Goongtongs in the rural villages. They are also in part responsible for the exodus of youth to Australia and the Middle Eastern countries. Why would the youth seek opportunities within the country when conditions are not ideal for entrepreneurial innovation? The fall out of this is actually so terribly inhuman. During my study of the malice called Goongtoongs few years back, I came face to face with the unspoken tragedy of the malice – the old and the frail are left to fend for themselves – because the villages are empty of young hands.

What population remains in rural Bhutan look like them

I can go on – but you get the gist of why agriculture production has been declining over the years. I ask you - how long can we go on like this?