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.
Source:
NBR
http://worldtruth.tv
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