Bhutan Farming
Threshing rice
Courtesy Bhutan Travel, Inc., New York (Marie Brown)
Crop farming was projected to produce 20.3 percent of
GDP in
1991. Only about 15 percent of Bhutan's extremely
mountainous land
was arable, and less than 6 percent was under permanent
cultivation. Because rainfall and temperatures changed
radically
from one valley to the next, there were significant
variations in
the kinds of crops that were raised in neighboring
communities.
Most farms were small, with 90 percent of nearly 65,000
landholders
having less than five hectares. Nearly 50 percent of those
farms
used terraced cultivation; another 18 percent were in
valleys.
Although banned by the government, tsheri
cultivation
accounted for 32 percent of the agricultural land use and
about 3
percent of the total land in the early to mid-1980s.
The major cereal crops in the 1980s were corn, rice,
wheat and
barley, buckwheat, and millet. Other major annual crops
were
potatoes, chilies, vegetables, soya beans, pulses, and
mustard.
Horticultural crops included oranges, apples, and
cardamom. Corn
and rice were by far the most prevalent crops, producing
81,000
tons and 80,000 tons, respectively, in 1988. In the same
year, a
total of 51,000 tons of oranges, 50,000 tons of potatoes,
16,000
tons of wheat, 7,000 tons of millet, 4,000 tons of barley,
and
4,000 tons of apples were produced. Total cereal
production,
however, only increased from 154,000 tons in 1979 to
205,000 tons
in 1987.
Despite increases in paddy production, with 26,000
hectares
under cultivation in 1989, rice was imported. Bhutan had
once been
an exporter of rice to Tibet, but its growing urban
population plus
the nonfarm immigrant and migrant population put a severe
constraint on previous self-sufficiency in rice
production. With a
total cereal demand of 200,000 tons by 1987, some 20,000
tons of
rice and 12,000 tons of wheat were being imported from
India
annually. Nonfood crops, such as jute, which was produced
by fewer
than 2 percent of Bhutan's farmers, also were grown. A
small amount
of tobacco was produced, with a reported crop of 100 tons
in 1987,
the same amount produced annually for nearly a decade.
Data as of September 1991
|