A flash flood in 2017 washed away an irrigation canal connecting paddy fields of four households in Dawathang village in Chuzergang, Gelephu, forcing the once rice self-sufficient farmers to buy imported rice.

A farmer, Tseten Dorji, said with his fields that produced more than 700kgs of rice annually now fallow, his family has to rely on imported rice.“My fields remained fallow for the last three years,” he said.

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