Food For Thought For All the Bhutanese: Speech by Dasho (Dr) Sonam Kinga, Hon’ble Chairperson of the National Council of Bhutan At Gedu College celebrating their 5th Foundation Day. Sharing a copy of my speech mostly for the benefit of the students since the heavy rainfall and the echo in the auditorium did not really help in getting the message across. Agriculture as Business Opportunity My roommate at Sherubtse College studied economics whereas I studied English literature. I saw him writing essays to prove one of the key tenets of modern economy, that, private sector is the engine of economic growth. Over the course of our three years of roomating and befriending students studying economics, I heard this sacred economic mantra repeated and recited times and again. Since I graduated 18 years ago, I heard that in both the officialdom and private sectors. For a person whose only economic knowledge is derived from the text book taught for Class IX and X in the early 90s, who was I to question the truth of that mantra. I took it as I heard it. So I keep repeating even today, that, private sector is the engine of economic growth. But I have begun to wonder early on what is the private sector, particularly, in the context of Bhutan. Is it the sector consisting of industrialists, contractors, business owners and service providers? Many people told me that such would constitute the private sector, that this sector is run by private citizens to make a profit and that the state does not exercise control over it. Is subsistence farming part of the private sector? Maybe not! But I said, farming may not earn them profit but the state does not control it. Some do make profits by producing a little surplus. I looked at records of growth of the manufacturing, construction, electricity and other so called secondary and tertiary sectors. Although they employ very little people, there has been significant growth in these sectors over the last few decades. But they have not been the engine of economic growth, for a variety of reasons, and still today, they argue that the government just pays lip service to that sacred economic mantra and does not do much. In the agriculture sector, where most poor people are employed, there has been negligible growth. If growth must translate to improved well-being and livelihood for the people, I dont think that this has to necessarily happen by moving people away from farms into factories and manufacturing sectors where growth is higher. May be, if we think of the realm of the subsistence farming as a private sector, growth in that sector could attest to the truth of this sacred mantra. Today, on the occasion of Gedu Colleges Foundation Day, I would like think along this line of fantasy a little bit. You may find it queer that I intend to deliver a speech which would not be something in the like of ones you heard it in the last five years. It is specific to an issue, that, private sector is the engine of economic growth. So, while I thank the Director General, faculty, staff and students of this wonderful college for the kind invitation to be here today, I fear I may appear to digress from conventional foundation day speeches. But I have decided to do that despite possibility of provoking your displeasure. May you all exercise compassion and tolerance since, after all, it is a person of class X economics knowledge, that will attempt this adventure into heavy economic stuff. Our parents are hard-working people. Most of our parents are subsistent farmers or rather poor peasants. And they work hard in the fields. Their hard work yield good results. They only do not get to enjoy all the fruits of their hard work. Wildlife depredation of food crops is the single most important issue that confronts rural communities. When a bountiful harvest is just a few weeks away, wild boars, monkeys, porcupines, elephants and others feast on the crops in which they had no part in producing, and lay fields to waste overnight. The story repeats every year. Disenchanted farmers choose to leave for towns seeking an alternative means to livelihood. Call it seasonal or long-term rural-urban migration, their movement to urban areas have gradually resulted in many village homes being left empty and many farms fallow. The irony is that they neither find a decent home in towns nor can they produce their own foods. Not all farmers can exercise the option to move out to towns. There are compulsions of livelihood that make them stay put in villages. But most of those who live in villages and farm our fields are elderly people. Their children, such as us, have left the village environment for education or work. This fact and the migration to towns have created an acute shortage of farm hands available to grow crops and produce foods. Although nearly 70% of our people are farmers, they are not able to produce enough foods to meet demands of a growing urban populace. Whatever is produced is sometimes left overs of crops not lost to wild animals, and to natural source of damages such as hail or windstorms. There is just enough to subsist. So the urban population has to depend largely on import of food grains and essential consumer goods. Every year statistics show staggering increases in amount of food grains imported largely from India. Attempts have been made to enhance agriculture productivity in the last few decades, and there are some success stories. Whether it is rice from Radhi and Chuzagang, cheese from Bumthang and Gogona, eggs from Tsirang, and vegetables from different parts of the country, local production has gone up. However, our overall dependence on imported food grains and essential food items is skyrocketing. Growth in the agriculture sector has been languishing below 2% in the last few decades. Even in the next five years, projections show that growth will continue to languish around 1.8%. Agricultures contribution to GDP has been steadily declining over the years. Economists comfort us to say that the declining share of the primary sector to GDP and movement of workforce into secondary and tertiary sectors, into towns are natural to a modernizing economy. In such an economy, agriculture has only marginal role engaging a handful of people. But we have a problem. Most of the Bhutanese people who depend on agriculture for subsistence livelihood are poor. The growth in the sector on which most of the poor depend has hardly grown nor promises to grow. This stagnancy is aggravated by wildlife depredation of food crops, which is a direct and undeserved attack on peasants subsistence livelihood. Besides the BDBL, other banks and financial institutions give agriculture loans only to commercial farmers. By commercial farmers, I refer to orchard owners, exporters of apples, oranges and other horticultural products. They have no lending portfolio to small subsistent peasants. BDBLs agricultural loans have helped these peasants but the need to relax conditions and increase borrowing limits in order to make access to credit meaningful and substantial still persist. Our farming peasants are aging. In another couple of decades, most of them will be gone, taking away with them knowledge and skills of farming, as well as the social and cultural norms and practices associated with farming. As of now, we are not training a new generation of food growers. The reservoir of farming knowledge and skills developed over thousands of years are not being transmitted to a new generation of food growers. Children are busy in schools acquiring a different set of knowledge. Our College of Natural Resources do not train people to take up farming. They are trained as extension agents in the Renewable Natural Resource Sector which includes agriculture. The simple question we have to ask ourselves is, who will grow our foods in the next thirty and forty years. As of now, there isnt much of an answer that is reassuring. Our food security policy, and that too a draft one at the moment, envisages meeting at least 70% cereal self sufficiency. Well, that may be possible as long as there are peasants, our parents, to grow foods. But if we do not prepare a new generation of Bhutanese to become food growers, food security will not be a realistic goal. Therefore, despite sporadic increases in productivity in some localities, we will continue to import food so as to feed our growing urban communities. To make matters worse, food prices will keep increasing. Food prices the world over are rising and are expected to keep rising over several decades. Quite a lot of our revenues would be spent in importing food grains and essential food items. A country dependent on food from imports will be highly vulnerable. What can we do? Or rather, what should we do? At the National Council, we have kept the issue alive since 2008. Research-based recommendations on human-wildlife conflict were submitted to the government. We have questioned the government during our Question Time quite often in order to exert positive pressure and reminder to the government to address the issue. Even in the first session of second National Council, we have expressed concern over many activities under the agriculture sector and suggested how resources were best allocated to boost growth. We have called the governments attention to develop a comprehensive integrated rural development policy. But what we really need is a bold re-thinking of agriculture policy. Agriculture need not remain at the margins of a modern economy. Although it may be a primary sector, that primary sector can still be central to modern Bhutanese economy a few decades down the line as much as hydro electricity is at the moment. It may be agriculture but it possible to transform this into a modern sector. It is possible to transform this private sector consisting of subsistent peasants into that private sector consisting of agriculture-based entrepreneurs! In a world where food prices are already high and will continue to rise, agriculture has to be thought of as a business opportunity. In an agricultural country that continues to import food, agriculture has to be thought of as a business opportunity. In a society that prided itself traditionally as producers of nine varieties of organic cereals, agriculture has to be thought of as a business opportunity. To initiate a bold thinking and imagination that posits agriculture as business opportunity, and key to future Bhutanese economy, can happen in a place like Gedu College. You would have certainly wondered why I chose to talk of agriculture in a college devoted to business studies. A week ago, 2407 graduates were attending their orientation program. Only about 500 of them would get a government job. Most would need to fall back upon something else. The days that extolled the virtues of a civil servant in terms of income and social status are now contested by new opportunities in the corporate and business sector. Entrepreneurship is the future for employment and growth. The fact that cottage, small and medium enterprises are key to employment creation, income generation and poverty alleviation has been proven in developed and developing countries. To fall back upon an old statistics of 2008, it was found that 17,642 industries registered fell in the category of cottage and small industries highlighting their importance for self-employment and income generation. There are some tax holidays for starting such businesses but the government must do more than that such as relax conditions for access to credit, make credit more meaningful by re-visiting borrowing limits, initiate and sustain entrepreneurship training programs, and support incubation of business ideas. When you graduate, make looking for jobs just one of your options, not the only option. Make entrepreneurship an option, an attractive and priority option. At Gedu College, incubation of business ideas that extend to neglected sectors like agriculture is highly possible. A thousand ideas are possible. Ideas must contest, compete, complement and reinforce each other. I am sure, most of you can devote to the conception of smart business ventures during the course of your studies and try have an attractive, workable business ideas. You may not have work experiences that every job vacancy announcement demands, but you could have that resourcefulness and creativity not to apply for jobs but to create jobs for yourself and others. Indeed the government must do its part to provide all necessary support to the best of ideas for business ventures. Perhaps, it is on an occasion such as the foundation day of your college that you remind yourselves for the need to craft a business idea as the foundation of your entrepreneurship. Think Private Sector, Think Entrepreneurship! Entrepreneurs must be the core constituents of the so called private sector, not just a handful of big businesses. And extend your entrepreneurship imaginations to the realm of agriculture so that we collectively address a national issue. When celebrating the foundation day of your college, we need to remind ourselves about the purpose of its foundation. The colleges purpose of training students in business studies would not and cannot be separate from our national goals. While celebrating the foundation day of your college, we need to think of the foundation of our collective future, the foundation of our country and I do believe that such a foundation can be built by thinking of amongst others, an important place for agriculture in a modern Bhutanese economy that is energized by entrepreneurs. And you can be one of those entrepreneurs! When Bhutanese economy is driven not by donors, not by state spending, not by hydro electricity and certainly not by a few business houses, but by entrepreneurs, by those who see agriculture as business opportunity, by those who transform subsistence farming to agro-business, we can still repeat the sacred mantra but with a lot of conviction, that Private Sector (constituting of entrepreneurs and enterprising farmers) is the engine of economic growth for Bhutan! Tashi Delek!
Posted on: Tue, 15 Oct 2013 10:34:35 +0000
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