Staff Reporter

Sumcho Pem, 45, from Phangyul Goenpa, Wangdue was all smiles as she took Mafalda Duarte, executive director of Green Climate Fund (GCF) to her paddy fields where she was threshing her rice harvest. It is Sumcho Pem’s first rice harvest in about five decades.

“It is wonderful to be able to grow rice again,” she said.

Eighty-eight-year-old Gyem beamed with joy as she welcomed Mafalda to her home and showed her rice harvest. “It is a dream-come true,” said Gyem, who endured water scarcity all her life and prayed for a respite every day.

Acute water shortage that plagued Phangyul for decades had forced Sumcho Pem and others in the community to forgo paddy cultivation.

A new 38-kilometre piped irrigation scheme (27 kilometres for Phangyul gewog and 11 kilometres for Kazhi gewog) installed by the government with support from UNDP and GCF, has finally put Phangyul’s water woes to an end once and for all.

Inaugurated in June, the irrigation scheme—installed at a cost of Nu. 550.99 million (USD 6 million)— heralded a new chapter for the people of Phangyul as it breathed new life into parched farmlands that had long been abandoned and restored their lost livelihoods.

“I am thrilled to be in Phangyul and see firsthand the impact of our partnership with the Royal Government of Bhutan and UNDP,” said Mafalda Duarte. “What I have witnessed here is how much the water supply provided through the irrigation scheme has impacted the community. Farmers are now able to grow rice and vegetables and sell in the market. It’s transformational. It’s a sea of change, from not having enough for household consumption to a situation where they now produce in excess and sell for income.”

The irrigation scheme provides a steady supply of water for farming to 285 households and 2,458 individuals (50 percent female) and helps irrigate 1,241 acres of agricultural land in Phangyul and Kazhi communities.

“My vision as well as one of the priorities of the GCF is to support the most vulnerable. In this community, we are not only impacting their food security and nutrition but also education and bringing new prosperity and hope for a better future. This is what it means to reach the most vulnerable people and communities,” said the head of GCF.

The Phangyul irrigation scheme is one of the 36 such schemes spread across eight districts and the largest supported through Bhutan’s “Supporting Climate Resilience and Transformational Change in the Agriculture Sector in Bhutan” project, implemented with technical support from UNDP and co-financed by the government and GCF.

The project is supporting Bhutan in its efforts to promote climate-smart agriculture practices and technologies to build resilience of smallholder farmers to the growing impacts of climate change. For instance, the irrigation schemes supported through the project, including the one in Phangyul and Kazhi, are all designed to better withstand extreme weather conditions.