Bhutanese vegetables

« Agreed: Farmers sign to grow vegetables
Consultancy firm comes up with a blueprint to export vegetables from the east to India in summer
Practical Solutions Farmers in and around Kanglung had been growing vegetables as long as they remember. Every summer, the little gardens are filled with a variety of healthy greens like cauliflower, cabbage, spinach radish and carrot.

Apart from selling at the Sunday market, most are consumed, as there is not enough sales. For some, Sherubtse college is too far to carry a backload and sell it to the college mess. This is about to change.

A survey carried out a by a consultancy firm, Practical Solutions, which identified the neighbouring Indian state of Assam as a potential market for Bhutanese vegetables in summer, when the plains are mostly flooded, and vegetables are scarce and expensive.

On the initiative of the SNV and the agriculture ministry, based on the findings of the survey, farmers from Kanglung gewog signed an agreement to cultivate “off season vegetables” and sell it to Indian markets. “We have about 35 villagers from Mongar,” an official from RNR centre, Mongar said.

“We’ll continue such awareness programmes and inform villagers in other dzongkhags about the opportunity.” Few gewogs in each of the six eastern dzongkhags were chosen to grow vegetables like cauliflower, cabbage, radish, beans, carrot and brinjal to sell in Guwahati, Assam.

Geley Tenzin of Practical Solutions said that a market survey was conducted in August in Guwahati, Assam, which showed there was high demand for import of such varieties of vegetables, especially during the months of June and August.

“Wholesalers in Assam wanted Bhutanese people to export vegetables during summer, with a condition to meet market’s demand,” he said. “But they demanded three tonnes (3,000 kg) of vegetables per month per trader.” This was, Galey Tenzin explained, due to drought, hot season and heavy floods, which made impossible for them to grow vegetables.

“They saw Bhutanese farmers as their potential and essential suppliers.” There are 126 traders registered with Bhutan, but only 20 would be selected to import to Assam. “This is because many traders means more demand,” Galey Tenzin said.

“We have less villagers, so we can’t meet the demand.” Studies show that Bhutanese potatoes are highly regarded, and Bhutanese vegetables might receive a better price than vegetables from elsewhere in India. The main competing area in off-season vegetables are the Shillong Hills south of Guwahati, according to Geley Tenzin.

Agriculture officials said the problem of not being able to sell products locally has been prevailing for years, which led to farmers losing interest in growing vegetables, except for their own consumption. “They aren’t interested to grow, because there are no customers,” official said. “Farmers were able to produce only about 500kg of vegetables.”

The villagers will sell their own grown vegetables in a group, and get income depending upon how many kilos of vegetables they sold. “They’ll sell to Bhutanese traders and then traders will sell to Assam traders,” Galey Tenzin said.

“If we don’t do this, it’ll be expensive for villagers to take vegetables every month.” The aim of this programme is to increase incomes of at least 1,200 households (6,000 people) in the six eastern dzongkhags by 5 to 15 percent by mid-2014. Around 60 groups and cooperatives will be strengthened and linked to markets. Galey Tenzin said, if possible, the programme should start by January when farmers are ready, because they should start sowing seeds by February and sell by June next year. “We’ll make Bhutanese traders meet Guwahati traders to understand market value,” Galey Tenzin said.

“We’ll decide the price for each vegetables during our meeting with farmers in December.” The same Bhutanese traders will interact with vegetable producing clusters and agree on vegetable varieties and quantities to be supplied. “We’ll also give training and skills to produce the products,” Galey Tenzin said.

Plans are also in pipeline to establish a shed in a particular location, where Bhutanese traders and Assam traders can collect the vegetables.

The program is funded by market access and growth intensification project (MAGIP), a project funded by the international fund for agricultural development (IFAD) with joint venture of RAMCO. Meanwhile, farmers who came to the briefing were upbeat about the prospects. “I’ll convert the vacant 10 decimal the plot near my house to grow vegetables,” said Karchung, a Kanglung farmer. Like Karchung all the 21 farmers who attended the briefing yesterday said if there is market to buy their products, they would start growing vegetables.

Source: kuenselonline