Chhukha, Bhutan, 2022 – Every day, smallholder women farmers around the world contribute to the wellbeing of their communities.
Meet 32-year-old Chimi Pem from Bjabchhog village in Chhukha, Bhutan. Chimi is the chairperson of the Bjabchhog Women’s Group, which received an SDF-funded training on value addition and enterprise development.
Chimi says that their agricutural products were not fetching the right price. The markets are far, resulting in higher transportation loss. This is why the value addition and agri-enterprise development training was much needed especially for these rural women groups as they can increase their income by processing their seasonal fruits and vegetables such as pickling, making noodles and etc.
Chimi, who is leading 14 women farmers, says that value-added agriculture provides a unique opportunity for women’s empowerment. The 14 young women farmers provide a platform for themselves to interact and share information on innovation, production, value addition and sustainable farming methods and markets.
“The training on value addition, food hygiene, book-keeping, pricing, packaging and branding has helped enhance our family and group income. We now provide value addition to our farm produce and then sell them. It has increased the value and prices of our products by many folds, decreased the losses and generated employment opportunities for similar women farmers,” she said.
This training was conducted under the SDF-funded project – “Livelihood enhancement of small farmers in SAARC region through small scale agro-business focusing on value chain development”.
They add value to their fruits and vegetables through processing and packaging them into pickles and noodles respectively, and promote them at the nearest markets.
Production and value addition equipment, bought with SDF support, will soon be installed inside the recently built processing shed to enhance production.
Assessing the benefits SDF’s Livelihood Project in Bhutan
May-June 2022: The SAARC Development Fund team undertook a field mission in Bhutan to monitor the progress of the SDF-funded livelihood enhancement project.
The team interacted with the implementing partners at the National Post Harvest Centre, Ministry of Agriculture and Forests, and farmers and residents of the rural community in Chhukha district to assess the contributions SDF project is making.
SDF’s livelihood project – Livelihood enhancement of the small farmers in the SAARC Region through small-scale agribusiness focusing on value chain development – provides farmers in the SAARC Member States opportunities to improve their livelihoods and increase income through small scale agro-business focusing on value chain development.
In Bhutan, the project is implemented in Bjachho gewog (administrative division composing a group of villages) in Chhukha and Yoedseltse gewog in Samtse. SDF has committed a grant of over US$ 191,334 to Bhutan for this project, of which US$ 150,191 has been disbursed so far.
SDF team monitored the recently contructed processing shed, held fruitful discussions with partners in the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests, and community members. Beneficiaries also shared their experience upon receiving the training on improved technologies, value addition and post-harvest practices.
The team was also made aware of the benefits of the Refrigerator Truck, which was bought with SDF support to transport perishable agriculture produce from the farms to either the cold storage or the market. The trucks are equipped with temperature control and monitoring mechanisms to keep agriculture contents safe and consumable.
The objective of the ongoing livelihood project is to combat both rural and urban poverty through:
