YK Poudel
Not too long ago, Sangay Dema, a 65-year-old farmer from the sprawling valley of Tang in Bumthang, grew wheat and buckwheat in her three-acres of land and potato in the remaining two acres. Today, she barely cultivates an acre of land, thanks to the increasing menace of wildlife predation.
“The wild boars don’t let anything grow here,” she said.
The challenges are many. The changing weather patterns further make the struggles of farmers in her village more difficult. “While wheat and buckwheat fetch good prices in the market, the risks are high too,” Sangay Dema said.
She is hoping that in the coming year the government would support farmers with necessary interventions, making it worthwhile for them to continue growing these cereals.
Farmer Tashi Lhendup from Tandingang village in Bumthang said that farmers are often not able to sell their produce on time, which leads to losses. “A storage facility at a convenient location would greatly help,” he said.
The shrinking size of Sangay Dema’s cultivated land is merely an indication of how buckwheat production has decreased over the years.
According to the Integrated Agriculture and Livestock Census of Bhutan 2023, 966 metric tonnes (MT) of buckwheat were harvested in the country in 2023, a drop by 167 MT compared to the previous year.
Tang gewog however produced 270 MT of buckwheat, the highest among the gewogs in Bumthang.
A total of 837 MT of wheat was produced last year, slightly increasing by 67 MT from 2022.
At the national scale, buckwheat production drastically declined from 2,350 MT in 2019 to just 966 MT in 2023. Similarly, wheat production also decreased from 1,319 MT in 2019 to 837 MT last year.
The decline in buckwheat production is attributed to several factors, including a reduction in the total cultivated area, which decreased by 253 acres last year. In addition, the number of buckwheat growers fell sharply, from 5,894 in 2020 to 4,342 in 2023.
In a recent news release, the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock stated that this decline is due to a shrinking workforce in cereal cultivation. Many farmers are also shifting their focus to vegetable and cereal crops that offer better market prices.
Despite the downturn in production, the ministry described the overall performance of the agricultural sector as ‘satisfactory’ last year.
In the 13th Plan, the ministry announced a range of initiatives to boost the agriculture sector, which includes farm mechanisation, new irrigation schemes and land development works, provision of power tillers, and installation of chain-link fencing, among others.