Renewable Natural Resource Research Systems Project BH10

 

Phase V          :       1 January 2004 to 31 December 2006

Budget            :       CHF 2.180

Partner           :       Council for RNR Research of Bhutan , Ministry of Agriculture, Thimphu

Contacts         :       Dr. Pema Chhophyel, Director, CoRRB and N. K. Pradhan,

                                Chief Research Officer, p_choephyel@moa.gov.bt, 322936 (o)

                                 Sonam Peljore, Programme Officer, Helvetas/SDC

                                 s_sonpel@helvetas.org.bt  322870 (o)

 

Background/Introduction

Objective

Future Outlook

Key Project Documents

 

 

Background/Introduction

The Council for Renewable Natural Resource Research of Bhutan (CoRRB) under the Ministry of Agriculture is operating four research centres with regional and national mandates.  Each of the Research Centres (RC’s) has a national and a regional mandate.  The RNR Research Systems project has been assigned with the task of conducting predominantly adaptive and applied research in agriculture, horticulture, livestock, farming systems and forestry.  The main output of the RNR research should be to acquire information on systems interaction, utilization and management of resources and the application of appropriate technologies.  The respective results are to be made available at all levels of potential clients, from policy makers to the individual farmers.    

 

The Phase III of the RNR Research Systems Project (RNR-RSP) is for a period of 3  years (January 2004 to December  2006) financed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Royal Government of Bhutan which is implemented by Helvetas (Swiss Association for International Cooperation).  The Goal of the Project is

to assist the Royal Government of Bhutan in improving the living standards of rural households and to foster sustainable management of natural resources through facilitating relevant research and extension, as well as strengthening community organizations and their marketing capacities.

 

The major objectives that the project seeks to achieve are summarised below:

 

Objective 1: To contribute to agricultural and horticultural diversification, so that household food security, income and employment potential of small farm agriculture is enhanced through sound conservation and development of economically and ecologically sustainable farming practices.
 

 


 

This objective directly contributes towards the 9th FYP agriculture sector objective of achieving national food security. Helping to realize this objective through agricultural and horticultural intensification and diversification is especially crucial in the context of Bhutan where the economy is essentially an agrarian one, and the agricultural land holdings small in very diverse altitudes and climatic conditions.

 

Objective 2: To contribute to an increase in the contribution of livestock to the household economy and to the nutrition of rural and urban populations, and to contribute to an increase in farm productivity with less grazing pressure on forest through improved livestock breed, feed and fodder availability, and maintenance of livestock health.

 

Livestock represents an important asset particularly to farmers with limited cultivable land holdings, aggravated by low productivity of land and lack of knowledge on the use of technical know-how. To increase the contribution of livestock to the household economy is in keeping with the priority of ‘increasing rural income generating activities’ (Millennium Development Goal, Progress Report 2002, Bhutan) to contribute towards eradicating extreme poverty and hunger. Livestock development will also supplement the dietary patterns of the rural and urban population. This objective also takes into consideration the national concern over the serious threat that overgrazing by domestic livestock has posed to the environment.

 

Objective 3: To contribute to enhanced productive and regenerative capacity of the forest resources safeguarding against any degradation of forest and water resources and most importantly the loss of biodiversity.

 

‘Ensure Environmental Sustainability’ is a MDG that has also been accorded high priority in the Bhutan Vision 2020. While the country enjoys a rich biodiversity, certain challenges that come together with modernization and the economic development of the country, population growth and related issues have been emerging. These, together with several capacity related constraints pertaining to the ‘management, monitoring, and evaluation of the state of the environment’ could seriously compromise the future of the environment. An important strategy laid out in the 9th five-year plan for biodiversity conservation is providing an enabling environment to promote scientific research and data analysis for conservation efforts.

 

Future Outlook:

 

With the HRD that has progressed well within the Research Systems, it is expected that the research qualities of the centres will be further increased.  The enhanced expertise will allow doing specialized research in relevant areas.  Due to the increased human capacities, the individual centres and sub-centres get more confidence and responsibilities, which will further enhance the research quality on regional level.  These areas may change parallel with the development of the whole RNR sector, such as income generating farm activities and conservation of resources becoming more important.  It is anticipated that research topics will become more complex and approaches more integrated and participatory.  Nevertheless, with their long experiences, Research Centres will become centres of excellence, exploiting international networks and sharing their own findings with other research institutions. 

 

The next few years should be fully exploited to make the RNR Research Systems fit for the future, that is to cope with the challenges ahead and to get optimum independence of donor support.  Currently, the system should focus on putting to work these very good pre-requisites in the most efficient way for research to the benefit of farmers and RNR users in general.   The system should concentrate more on technology development, to this end, participatory approaches should be followed wherever reasonable and especially the capacity for participatory impact assessment should be built.  Research protocols have to be severely scrutinized at low enough level, impact has to become even more the keyword in research and researcher qualification.  Therefore, impact assessment has to become a routine part of all research centres. 

 

Considering the better education of future farmers and extensionists and more specialized farming, the problems, with which research will be confronted, will become more challenging.  The Research Centres will have to react in a way to become a competent and reliable partner and a source of information for extension and farmers. 

 

The CoRRB will try to ensure that the infrastructure in all the Research Centres are largely completed and adequate number of researchers are in place.  In order to strengthen CoRRB’s sustainability and national backing, it should cautiously explore the possibility to include further areas in its mandate such as water, climate change, human nutrition, policy research, as long as the respective additional resources come along.  The project looks forward to the extension of the current Phase by another 18 months starting Janaury 2007.  However, with the announcement of the SDC phasing out scenario in the RNR sector for Bhutan, the uncertainty of a future donor support remains a critical issue.