Chimi Dema | Dagana

As a part of economy contingency plan (ECP) programmes in the dzongkhag and also to meet the domestic demand of onion and tomatoes in the country, Dagana agriculture sector has identified more than 176-acre land to grow these vegetables in the coming season.

With farmers in the dzongkhag raising nurseries currently, transplantation of saplings is expected to begin from November.

Dzongkhag Agriculture Officer, D.C Bhandari, said that poly houses were being installed for winter vegetable production.

“We have been carrying out mass chili cultivation since in the past but now, we are planning to escalate tomatoes production in protected farm,” he said.

The ECP would also prioritise the production of winter chili and cauliflower in ten gewogs. The sector has identified over 200-acre land to grow chili and cauliflower.

The sector aims to produce about 172 metric tonnes (MT) of tomato, 108MT of onion and about 192MT of chili this season.

Last year, the dzongkhag produced about 950MT of winter vegetables.

Dagana received about Nu 11.7 million as agriculture ECP resource.

The idea behind ECP is to reduce import, especially to meet demand for the northern dzongkhags in winter.

Agriculture officials said that farmers would be provided with seeds, greenhouse, mega poly houses, technical support and other resources such as irrigation to enhance farm produce.

Although the ECP has involved only ten major vegetable-producing gewogs, D.C Bhandari said that other four gewogs would be equally supported with resources from other projects and sector’s annual budget.

In low-altitude places such as Lhamoidzingkha, he said farmers were ready to begin winter chili transplantation.