Rice in Bhutan : a source book /(Acc: 3578)

Bhutan has an area of 38,394 km 2 and a population of approximately 700,000. It is a landlocked country situated on the south-eastern slope of the Himalayas. Over 72% of the
country is under forest cover. The cultivated area is only about 3%, including wetland, dry land for horticulture crops and fallow rotation. Rice is indispensable in the Bhutanese culture, tradition, religion and farmers’ livelihoods. More than 69% of the population is engaged in farming with rice and maize as the main crops. Although rice is not the largest produced cereal in
the country, it is the most widely consumed cereal. The per capita consumption of rice is computed at 172 kg milled rice per year. Rice is grown in about 23,444 ha (DoA, 2009) with a
total production of about 65,763 MT of rough rice. The national average rice yield stands at 2.81 t/ha. Domestic production of rice has not been able to meet the demand due to low productivity.The domestic production of rice meets only about 50% of the total requirement. The deficit is met from rice imports amounting to over 50,000 MT per annum from India. The insufficiency in rice stems from a number of factors such as limited wetland, use of low yielding traditional cultivars, low use of plant nutrients from inorganic fertilizers (9-11 kg of plant nutrients per ha), weeds, diseases and insect pests, and limited irrigation water supply. The majority of rice farmers produce rice for their household needs alone; marketing constraints limit the incentives to produce beyond their needs. A study in 2007 showed that less than 15% of the rice produced is marketed locally (Ghimiray et al, 2007), although the demand for locally produced rice exists.