The tiny
Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan drew international attention a few years back for
saying gross national happiness should trump gross domestic product when
measuring a nation's progress. If you're going to prioritize happiness, the
Bhutanese thinking goes, you'd better include the environment and spiritual and
mental well-being in your calculations. (Not everyone in Bhutan is happy, and
many leave as refugees, as Human Rights Watch and others have noted.)
But Bhutan,
which has only 700,000 people — most of whom are farmers — has another shot at
international fame if it can make good on a recent pledge to become the first
country in the world to convert to a 100 percent organic agricultural system.
Last month at
the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development, Prime Minister Jigmi
Thinley said his government is developing a National Organic Policy
because the country's farmers are increasingly convinced that "by working
in harmony with nature, they can help sustain the flow of nature's
bounties."
Going all-out
organic is a lofty goal for any country given that many farmers — and poor
farmers in particular — covet chemical fertilizers and pesticides to enrich
their soil, boost production and keep diseases and pests at bay.
But Andre
Leu, an Australian adviser to the Bhutanese government and the president of the
International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements, says it's very
doable.
"I don't
think it's going to be that difficult given that the majority of the
agricultural land is already organic by default," Leu tells The Salt.
Indeed, the
synthetic chemicals and fertilizers that are used so widely in countries like
the U.S. are only available and affordable to a few of Bhutan's farmers who are
widely dispersed across the rugged and mountainous terrain sandwiched between
India and China. But very few of the organic-by-default farmers have been
certified as such by third-party institutions. (Certified organic food, by the
way, makes up less than 1 percent of the world's calories, and is mostly
available to wealthy consumers.)
According to the
World Food Program, Bhutanese farmers mainly grow rice and corn, as
well as some fruits and vegetables, including potatoes and oranges. But as
demand for food has grown in recent years, the country has been forced to import
rice and other foods from India, and today Bhutan is a net food importer.
One of the few
products Bhutan exports to the U.S. is red rice;Lotus Foods sells it to
chains like Whole Foods. Bhutanese red rice is more nutritious and tastes
nuttier than white rice, its boosters say, and is well-suited to pilaf, as
Monica Bhide reported for NPR's Kitchen Window earlier this year. The rice
does not have organic certification, but Lotus Foods says it been grown without
the use of pesticides or other chemical inputs for centuries.
The Ministry of
Agriculture says the organic program, launched in 2007, is not just
about protecting the environment. It will also train farmers in new methods
that will help them grow more food and move the country closer to
self-sufficiency. The ministry is now training extension workers in organic
methods and giving farmers who go organic priority for government assistance.
Not everyone is
so sure that a 100 percent organic Bhutan is a great idea. Leu says he's found
some resistance among researchers at the Ministry of Agriculture who've been
trained in conventional farming techniques abroad.
And an article
last year in the Bhutan Observer notes that many farmers who
grow export crops like apple, Mandarin orange, and potato already rely heavily
on chemical fertilizers and could be reluctant to give them up.
Still, Leu is
optimistic that Bhutan's burgeoning organic agriculture research centers will
eventually be able to come up with organic methods to boost yields and manage
the problems of these crops.
"All these
problems are solvable, they just need a few more years of research to come up
with some more effective solutions," Leu says.
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