Lekey Zangmo

To learn from the Economic Support Project (ESF), stakeholders shared their experiences during a two-day knowledge-sharing workshop that ended yesterday.

The project was initiated to help people facing difficulties the Covid-19 pandemic posed. The project supported micro-enterprise and climate-resilient farming activities to address food security and unemployment issues and resolve problems caused by Covid-19 on the livelihood of people.

Agriculture Minister Yeshey Penjor, and a US delegation led by Patricia Lacina, the Charge de Affairs of the US Embassy in Delhi, and Venna Reddy, the Mission Director of USAID India attended the end of the workshop.

Lyonpo Yeshey Penjor said that efforts are made to commercialise agriculture and to ensure sustainable farming in the country especially by the youth using their knowledge and help generate employment.

The event of the Economic Support Project (ESF) was implemented in collaboration with Bhutan Foundation. The ESF is a part of USAID’s USD 1 million Covid-19 support initiative for economic and humanitarian assistance to Bhutan.

The project also engaged the Lhomon Society, Tarayana Foundation, Loden Foundation, Bhutan Association of Women Entrepreneurs (BAOWE), and the Panbang Youth Cooperative.

The project encouraged contract farming and helped farmers scale up production leading to 195 acres of land development.

More than 800 farmers were trained in sustainable cultivation methods such as organic mulching, greenhouses, winter cropping, and land development.