CASE STUDIES :Policy Impact Assessment

of Irrigation Schemes

Volume IIPolicy and Planning Division, Ministry of Agriculture & Forests

May 2017

CASE STUDIES :Policy Impact Assessment

of Irrigation Schemes

Volume II

Policy and Planning Division, Ministry of Agriculture & ForestsMay 2017

CONTENT

1. Case Study of Menjabi Yuwa, Lhuentse ....................................................................................................... 12. Case Study of Irrigation impact, Yoseltse, Samtse ..................................................................................... 143. Case Study of Silsiley Kulo Irrigation Scheme, Sarpang ............................................................................. 264. Case Study of Radhi Irrigation, Trashigang ................................................................................................ 455. Case Study of Lachu Yuwa,Wangduephodrang ......................................................................................... 646. Case Study of Zila Irrigation, Zhemgang .................................................................................................... 85

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Policy Impact Analysis

National Irrigation Policy

MENJABI YUWA, MENBI GEOG LHUENTSE DZONGkHAG

Mr. Jigme Wangdi, Principal Livestock Health Officer, DoL &

Mr. Sherab Wangdi, Legal Officer, PPD

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Table of Contents

Executive Summary ...................................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents 1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1

a. Economic context ............................................................................................................ 1

b. Administrative context .................................................................................................... 2

c. History of the irrigation scheme ..................................................................................... 2

2. Methodology ................................................................................................................................... 3

3. Findings and Discussions ................................................................................................................. 4

a. Demography of the study sites ....................................................................................... 4

b. Most important changes perceived by local population ................................................ 4

4. Impact on Objectives Persuaded ..................................................................................................... 5

a. Food self-sufficiency ........................................................................................................ 5

b. Source of income ............................................................................................................. 5

c. Income share from different sources .............................................................................. 7

d. Enhanced food and nutrition security............................................................................. 8

e. Diversification and intensification ................................................................................... 9

f. Improved water management ...................................................................................... 10

g. Capacity development ................................................................................................... 11

5. Other impacts observed ................................................................................................................ 11

a. Agricultural inputs utilization ........................................................................................ 11

b. Gender engagement and enhanced time use ............................................................... 12

6. Conclusion and recommendations ................................................................................................ 13

Lists of Table Table 1 Percent household food self-sufficiency ratio for cereals ............................................. 5 Table 2 Mean household income (Nu), and % household respond to changing trend of income from different sources ................................................................................................... 6 Table 3 % Household income share from different income sources ......................................... 8 Table 4 % household food security situation and the coping mechanism adopted .................. 9 Table 5 % area cropped for different agriculture crops ............................................................. 9 Table 6 Mean agriculture inpus utilized per annum ................................................................ 12 Table 7 % household respond on the trend of agriculture inputs utilization .......................... 12 Table 8 Gender engagement in percentage for different household activities ...................... 13

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Executive Summary

The Menjabi yuwa under Menjabi village was selected for the study to assess the impact of irrigation on land use (crop diversification and intensification), household income and food security. Begang chu a perennial stream is the main source of Menjabi yuwa, about 4 km in length (open canal combined with piped type). The irrigation scheme caters service to about 36 household beneficiaries with total command area of 54.72 acres. Major renovation of the irrigation scheme was carried out in 2011 with financial support from the Royal Government of Bhutan. Field survey was carried out starting from first week of April 2016 for a period of about three weeks. Survey interview, unlike other interview was conducted using Samsung Android Tablets which contained an application called CSEntry developed by US Census Bureau. The data entry application was designed using CSPro 6.2. A total of thirty-nine households, the beneficiaries of Menjabi yuwa were interviewed to collect information at household level. Information was also collected from the RNR Extension Office in the gewog and the Geog Extension Officer, and through Key Informant interview, where the enumerators interacted with the elderly men and women from the villages to supplement the data collected at household level. Data gathered were processed using CSPro 6.2, Microsoft excel and analysed descriptively in SPSS 23. Initially, the study was designed to include control village for comparison; however, at the field level appropriate villages could not be identified. Therefore, the study resorted to comparison of changes observed between before and after the major renovation of the irrigation scheme in 2011, as the baseline. All farmers of Menjabi and Nuebi village have assured access to irrigation, and it is used for irrigating both wetland and dryland. However, the irrigation is mainly used for paddy cultivation in the area, despite having a huge potential for dryland agriculture farming. Interestingly, none of the farmers have adopted other available water harvesting or management technologies (sprinkle, reservoir, and drip irrigation) in the study area. Dryland agriculture farming is dependent on rain water. With improved irrigation scheme water losses along the irrigation canal have reduced, water management had improved, which ultimately had strengthened social cohesion in the villages. It had also reported to have saved lots of time for the household particularly with small household member size, enabling them for the allotment of time to other productive activities - mainly in engagement in off-farm activities. From the study, we could deduce that the present irrigation scheme was more inclined toward wetland farming. There is a huge potential for the crop intensification and diversification in the geog; thus, the government should support and advocate in adoption of cost effective dryland irrigation technologies such as reservoir, sprinkle, drip irrigation to maximize dryland area utilization for crop production.

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There was a large variations of food self-sufficiency ratio among the respondents; thus, the median value of the food SSR was estimated to deduce the overall food self-sufficiency status of the study site. With the median value estimated at 1.68, the study deduced that all respondents meet their annual household cereal requirements from the domestic cereals production. Also from this study finding we could bluntly say that the farmers from the study site do not face food shortage. Although, there was household that do not produce cereals at all; however, the cereals requirement of household is met through purchase from cash income earned from different sources. Both male and female were equally engaged in carrying out different tasks at household and community level with exceptions to household chores and guarding agricultural field at nights. The nature of works defines specific gender engagement, and it is expected to depend on household member size, its distribution by sex and age group. The gender involvement trend in different activities is expected to remain constant over time in general. In overall, although there was assured irrigation in the villages the impact of irrigation scheme as such cannot be ascertained objectively in enhancement of crop productivity, intensification and diversification with exceptions to paddy cultivation. As most of the farmers grow paddy, irrigation will remain as one of the inevitable components in improving livelihood.

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1. Introduction

Lhuentse is one of the most isolated and least developed districts of Bhutan. The district is sub-divided into eight geogs (blocks) – namely, Gangzur, Jaray, Kurtoe, Menbi, Metsho, Minjay and Tsenkhar. It has total household of about 2506 (Royal Government, Ninth Plan, pg.2). The eastern and western part of the district is popular known for producing textiles in the region. Most importantly, Lhuentse is the ancestral homeland of the Bhutan’s hereditary monarch. The district is also known to have diverse flora and fauna, and is a part of environmentally protected areas of Bhutan.

Lhuentse is also home to a variety of language groups – Dzala is spoken in the east, Chochangachakha, a sister language to Dzongkhag in the south. The northern and western parts of the district are known as the Kurtö region, where inhabitants speak Kurtöp language. Menbi geog is one of the eight geogs under Lhuentse dzongkhag with geographical area of about 88.80 square km lies at 27 35 57.84″ N, 91° 10′ 53.04″ E. The altitude of the geog ranges between 1400 to 2100 meter above sea level making it climatically favourable, but agriculture farming remains difficult due to difficult terrain and lack of appropriate infrastructure. Nonetheless, agriculture remains as the main sources of livelihoods for the rural population of the Menbi geog. The main agricultural crops grown are rice, maize, potatoes, oranges, other fruit trees (pears, peach, apple) and variety of vegetables. Livestock rearing is the integral part of agriculture farming, and almost every household owns either livestock (cattle, pig, horses) and/or poultry. The geog comprises 65 villages, 457 households and a population of about 2022.

a. Economic context Menbi geog remained in isolation prior to the government development intervention; however, the farmers have been cultivating paddy and other agricultural crops. It seems that the farmers of the study site were self-sufficient in cereal crops prior to intervention from the government, as it was reported that excess paddy and chilli produced were bartered with farmers from Bumthang against livestock products (butter and cheese). Today, Menbi along with Minjay and Kurtoe geogs form the “rice bowl” of Lhuentse Dzongkhag. Thus, irrigation is inevitable for the farmers of Menjabi village particularly for the paddy cultivation. The government development activities have brought changes in the livelihood, as well as in the living standard of rural populace in the geog. Nonetheless, agricultural farming remains as the life line of farmers’ livelihood and economy in Menbi geog. Vegetable production program is gaining popular among the farmers, and are vigorously pursued in group to produce adequate vegetables to meet the demand of Schools and local markets. Similarly, farmers are also venturing into intensive livestock farming particularly poultry to improve nutritional intake of the family members, and to generate additional cash income through sale of excess products. Some farmers have opted for the Hazelnut plantation in their barren land anticipating to enhance cash income. The people are optimistic that the local and international tourists will boom in the region with completion of the Guru Nangse Zhilon statue construction at Takila, a few kilometres away

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from the Menbi geog centre. It is expected to open up markets for the farm products, and at the same time triggered the growth of other cottage industries, which ultimately will contribute to increase in cash income of rural household. Other economic return comes from the sale of textiles products, remittance and engagement in off-farm activities. Economically the living standards of the people in the geog are above the poverty line, which could be in part attributed to establishment of infrastructure (farm road, irrigation, electricity etc.) and availability of service centres in the geog.

b. Administrative context The geog is administratively headed by an elected Gup. The Gup is assisted by elected Mangmi and a Gedung in the administration of the Geog. At the chiwog level, Tshogpa an elected member from chiwog (a group of villages) represent the chiwog in decision making at geog level. The geog is sub-divided into five chiwogs namely Zhungkhar-Nyebi, Phagidoong-Dromazhong, Tangmachu-gorang, Khamdhar-Murmo, and Menjabi (Yomaed-Dangling). Major decisions and development activities are implemented with approval from the Geog Tshodu, the highest decision making body in the geog. The issues and challenges beyond the capacity and purview of geog Tshodu to decide upon are submitted to the Dzongkhag Tshogdu, the highest decision making body at dzongkhag for further deliberation. Apart from the administrative setting at the geog, there are farmers’ groups – vegetable production group and Community Forests which governs the operation and management of groups within the purview of rules and regulations framed. Annual communal religious festivals and social events maintain strong social cohesion among the farmers ultimately contributing to preservation of age old customs and traditions in the geog. The geog has numbers of infrastructure (farm road) and service centres, i.e. CIC, Beat Office, Health and Agriculture. There are also eight Non-Formal Education Centres, one community and one Middle Secondary school in the geog. In regards to irrigation, services are availed as a common resource, shared among the beneficiaries based on internal common understanding and arrangement. Minor maintenance was done by the beneficiaries themselves through equal labour contributions; and in case of major renovation, interventions and supports are solicited from the local authority.

c. History of the irrigation scheme Begang chu a perennial stream is the main source of irrigation for Menjabi and Nueibi village of Menbi geog both in the past and present. In the past, construction of irrigation canal was coordinated amongst farmers themselves by contributing labour from each beneficiary household. A manually excavated open canal in plain areas combined with traditional wooden canal in rugged and steep terrain are used to harvest water from the source and irrigate paddy fields in the past. This local irrigation scheme of Menjabi and Nuebi village was replaced in 1995 by the construction of improved permanent irrigation scheme. The modern irrigation scheme is open canal type, and polythene pipes were used in steep gradient areas. Maintenance works of irrigation channel were carried out by the beneficiary’s households both in the past and present. However, the modalities differed as in the past all households

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contribute equal labour force for the maintenance of irrigation canal. Whereas, at present minor maintenance works related to irrigation are carried out by the household beneficiaries; major renovation works were undertaken by the government. Menjabi Yuwa (irrigation canal) about 4 km in length was renovated in 2011 with financial supports from Marketing and Access Growth Intensification Program (MAGIP).

2. Methodology The irrigation canal in the country was categorized into six different types- namely Large Priority South (LPS), Small Priority South (SLS), Large Non-priority North (LNN), Large Priority North (LPN), Small Priority North (SPN) and Small Non-priority North (SNN) based on information available with the Irrigation Division, Department of Agriculture, MOAF. Accordingly, Menjabi Yuwa under Menbi geog of Lhuentse dzongkhag categorized as the LPN category was purposively selected for the impact study. The study targeted to have treatment and control group separately for the comparison of the irrigation impact. However, upon arrival at the site and informal conversation with farmers and village headman, there were no defunct irrigation canal, neither there were areas without irrigation canal in the geog; thus, the control site could not be identified. Therefore, it was decided to compare the impact of irrigation based on changes observed before and after the major renovation of the irrigation canal that took place in year 2011, as a baseline. To compare the findings based on “before” and “after” was felt appropriate mainly due to two reasons in this study. Firstly, the irrigation canal got major facelift in 2011 after its construction in 1995. Secondly, farmers have faced series of problems prior to 2011 investment – washing away of canal partly during the peak monsoon season, water seepage, more conflicts among villagers, and more time or labour engagement was required on maintenance and clearing of debris. However, such problems were drastically reduced after the major renovation works carried out in 2011. The canal was renovated using cements and polythene pipes. The polythene pipes were used in a steep and sloppy areas. Field survey was carried out starting from first week of April 2016 and was completed by 3rd week of April 2016. Farmers were pre-informed about the interview dates, and accordingly enumerators visited farmers house for the interview. Unlike other interview, study interview was conducted using Samsung Android Tablets which contained an application called CSEntry developed by US Census Bureau. The data entry application was designed using CSPro 6.2. A total of thirty-nine households from Menjabi and Nuebi village were interviewed to collect information at household level. Additional information was gathered through Key informant interview, where the interviewer interacted with the elderly men and women from the villages. Additional information was also collected from the RNR Extension Office in the gewog and the Geog Extension Officer to further supplement the data collected from household interview and Key informant. A transact walk was carried out on the first day after arrival to study site to observe and gather first-hand information and understand opportunities and challenges of

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the study site with focus on socio-economic conditions of the inhabitants, infrastructure, the kinds of crops cultivated, types of livestock reared, topography of the land and water source etc. Data gathered were processed using CSPro 6.2, Microsoft excel and finally analysed descriptively in SPSS 23.

3. Findings and Discussions

a. Demography of the study sites Based on the total respondents, the population of study site was estimated at 127, with gender distribution of 54% male and 46 % female. Majority of household population falls within the age group between 18 to 60 (61%), followed by 60 years and above (25%), and the least falling within the age group below 18 years (14%). Majority of the family members residing in the villages were uneducated (68%), about 7% have attended non-formal education (NFE), 17% were students (from primary to degree level) and 8% were monks.

b. Most important changes perceived by local population

Some of the positive changes reported as well as observed were improved extension services delivery, increase access to markets for local agricultural produce, intensification of crops and livestock production, improve nutritional intake, saw improvement in social cohesion, and ultimately an increase in household cash income. All these changes were brought about due to government socio-economic development policies pursued to improve rural livelihoods. These changes are attributed mostly to development and improvement of infrastructure such as farm road, irrigation scheme, intensification of vegetable and livestock production program. The Menjabi irrigation canal saw a major facelift in 2011 after its construction sometimes in 1995. However, major changes brought about from this irrigation scheme alone could not be ascertained to the beneficiaries at large; however, with improvement in the irrigation canal from the conventional traditional type to improved permanent opened canal type have reduced household time requirement on maintenance and clearing of debris along the canal. With almost all households cultivating paddy, and availability of assured seasonal irrigation attributing to small command area of 54.72 acres and beneficiaries’ household (36) of the irrigation scheme, all farmers of the study site were gainer, although some farmers have reported to have lost some area of land during construction of irrigation canal. Most recent changes perceived was in the growth of both local and international tourism attributing to the construction of Giant Guru statue at Takila. In contrary, it was reported that the people are becoming materialistic and wants for good and services have increased by many-folds, and the diversity of local crops production particularly fox tail millets, buckwheat and wheat are diminishing. An issue pertaining to environment particularly increasing concern on waste management was raised.

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4. Impact on Objectives Persuaded

a. Food self-sufficiency Table 1 shows food self-sufficiency ratio (SSR) for the cereals crop. The figures in the table were calculated based on the common assumptions that the average cereals contain 3858 kcal per kg with due consideration that daily requirement of energy for humans would depend on age, sex, gender and level of activity a person take up. Average energy requirement at 2200 kcal per person per day was assumed, and accordingly it was estimated that a person would require 570 gm of cereals in average per day to meet the daily energy requirement. Table 1 Percent household food self-sufficiency ratio for cereals

Parameters % household Food self-sufficiency ratio for cereals

More than 1 53 Between 0.75 and 1 3 Between 0.5 and 0.75 3 Less than 0.5 41

Median of food self-sufficiency ratio for cereals for all households interviewed

1.68

Food SSR for cereals was calculated and accordingly percent distribution of respondents was estimated under four groups. It was observed that more than half (53%) of the respondents have food SSR greater than 1, followed by 41.0 % of respondents having SSR below 0.5. Since there were large variations of food SSR among the respondents, the median value of the food SSR was estimated. The estimated median value of 1.68 reveals that all respondents in the study site meet their annual household cereal requirements from the domestic cereals production. The major cereal crops grown in the study site were paddy and maize. It was recorded that only one household (3 %) of the total respondents (n=39) did not grow paddy and maize both before and after establishment of irrigation scheme. However, the lone household earns cash income through engagement in off-farm activities, and the household cereal requirements are met through purchase from cash income earned. The household family member size was estimated at 3.26 persons, much smaller than the average household member size of 4.70 and 4.60 persons recorded for Lhuentse and Bhutan respectively (NHPC, 2005).

b. Source of income

Table 2 shows the major sources of household income, its trend and percent proportion of income sources against the total annual cash income in Menjabi and Neubi village as compared to year 2011. Farmers of both villages have various cash income sources as evident from the Table 2. Among those income sources, other off-farm activities (business, weaving, pottering, contract works etc.) top the lists, followed by income from sale of cash crop (potatoes) and vegetables (chilli, asparagus, cauliflowers, carrot, peas, beans). The annual mean income recorded from other off-farm activities was Nu. 30250/- followed by cash crops, vegetables and remittances of Nu.

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16843/, 12890/- and 9786/- respectively. The annual mean income recorded from the sale of cereal grains, livestock products (dairy, meat, eggs and fish) and fruit crops (apple, orange) were Nu. 7556, Nu. 6500/- and Nu. 3166/- respectively. Table 2 Mean household income (Nu), and % household respond to changing trend of income from different sources

Income Sources n Mean SD hh income trend (%) Increase Decreasing Same

Crop products 9 7556 8033 63 0 37 Vegetables 18 12890 14501 78 5 17 Fruit crops 5 3166 3189 80 20 0 Cash crops 18 16844 14679 44 56 0 Livestock products 9 6500 3979 80 0 20 Non-wood forest products 1 3000 0 0 3 Remittances 14 9786 6315 43 57 0

Other off-farm activities 8 30250 53012 38 62 0 The highest proportion of income was contributed from other off-farm activities attributable to the growing numbers of development activities in the geog, and corresponding opportunities for the farmers’ engagement on off-farm activities. The people in the area also earned significant amount of income from sale of textile products that directly contribute to income from off-farm activities. However, 62% of the total respondents interviewed reported that an income from off-farm activities will decline, whereas 38% of the respondents reported that the income will increase from off-farm activities. The differences in respondents view on the income trend might have cropped up from different level of opportunities in engaging themselves for different off-season activities or bad experiences farmers have encountered. An increase in cash income from sale of fruits crops was reported by 80% of the respondents in this study. This trends could have reported relating to number of fruits trees they have grown with supports from the Renewable Natural Resources-Research and Development Center (RNR-RDC), Wengkhar. The fruits trees grown are still young, and it is expected to bear fruits in two to three years’ from now, and accordingly it is expected to contribute to cash income generation of household in few years’ time. An increase in cash income from sale of vegetables was reported by 78% of the total respondents. The government supports in intensification of vegetable production program and linking it to school food programs coupled by easy access to other local markets for vegetables unlike in the past, have encouraged farmers in Menbi geog to produce and market more vegetables. More vegetables will be required to meet the demand of central school which would further trigger vegetable production in the area. With opportunity foreseen in the vegetable production program, farmers group was formed to intensify and market vegetables in Menbi. Although water was required for vegetable production the requirement was met from the rain water. More than fifty percent of the total respondents have reported that income from cash crop will decline, against 44% who have expected income to increase from cash crop. The reasons for the decline as submitted were losses of cash crop (potatoes) to wild animals and erratic production. The members of vegetable production group have plan

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to increase potato cultivation area to meet the cash crop demand of the schools and local markets. The cash income from livestock farming is reported to increase by 80% of total respondents, against 20% who have reported income to remain constant over the time. The increasing income trend from livestock products may be due to better extension services people have received, and also it may be attributable to high demand of livestock products and easy access to local markets. Further, the livestock development particularly poultry is vigorously pursued with government livestock subsidy policy supports to address the nutritional intake as well as to enhance cash income of the rural household. A declining trend in income from remittance was reported by 60% of the total respondents. In contrast, 40% reported an increasing trend over time. In most cases, remittance came from their children and relatives working as an employee either in the corporate or government agencies within the country. It was interesting to note that there is at least one of the family members working as an employee of the government or corporate agencies. It was reported that cash in particularly was required to meet expenses - in performing annual rituals and contribution for social events, and in meeting expenses for the school going children. Since cash is not readily available in times of need, they request their sons/daughters or relatives working as government or corporate employee to send money. Other times, even if they do not ask consciously feeling the social responsibility to look after their ageing parents’ money is being remitted to meet miscellaneous expenses (gung tax, insurance, social contributions etc..), as most of the basic food items required are produced from their field. Now, with living standards becoming expensive across the country, the income working employee earns is just adequate to meet their household expenses. So, some respondent reported that income from the remittance will decline over the time. Some of the respondents even mentioned that the government employee should resign and come back home and work, as income earned are much better in the villages. The contribution of irrigation on household income cannot be ascertained as majority of activities undertaken until date were subsistence in nature. Nonetheless, with farmers opting to commercialized agriculture farming the roles and impact of irrigation will become more tangible.

c. Income share from different sources Table 3 shows % household income share from different sources. Household income share of 25%, 20%, 19% and 19% was recorded from engagement in other off-farm activities, remittance, vegetables and cereals crops, respectively. A low household income shares of 8%, 4% and 5% was recoded from livestock, fruits and cash crop, respectively. However, household income share is expected to increase over the time from livestock and fruits crops given enabling government policy supports coupled by farmers’ interest to venture into economic scale of farming.

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Table 3 % Household income share from different income sources

Income sources % Share Agricultural income from cereals 19 Agricultural income from vegetables 19 Agricultural income from fruits 4 Agricultural income from livestock 8 Agricultural income coming from cash crop 5 Income from remittance 20 Income from other off-farm activities 25

The impact of irrigation scheme on income generation activities cannot be ascertained; however, it might have indirectly contributed in one or other ways.

d. Enhanced food and nutrition security

Table 4 compares food shortage situation of household prior to and after major maintenance of irrigation canal. In both cases, only about 3% of the total respondent faced food shortage throughout the year. This shortage has resulted from non-cultivation of cereal crops besides holding agricultural land. However, the cereal requirement of household was met through purchased from cash income earned through engagement in other off-farm activities - sale of local bamboo products (baskets, rope, sieve etc.), weaving, casual labour in construction activities and carpentry works. With this, it could be deduced that none of the households faced food shortage in the study area.

Farmers in Menjabi chiwog still reflects on the conflicts over the irrigation canal in their chiwog prior to introduction of modern irrigation canal schemes in Bhutan. During those days’ conflicts over the irrigation canal was very common, mostly between the two rich landlords. Majority of farmers in Menjabi chiwog used to work as slaves for this two landlords. A solution to this conflict was found when these two landlordsconstructed and owned independent irrigation canal running parallel to each other. However, the trend in frequency of conflicts did not decrease as the source of irrigation was the same. Other farmers had to depend on the irrigation canal owned by two landlords for irrigation until government intervention and construction of common irrigation canal in mid 90s. Since then, farmers in the chiwog had developed a shared sense of ownership over the irrigation canal which has now become a common public property of the farmers of Menjabi chiwog. Construction of common irrigation canal in the chiwog had thus put an end to the sole ownership, helped drastic reduction of conflicts among the beneficiaries, and enhanced social cohesion among the farmers in the chiwog.

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Table 4 % household food security situation and the coping mechanism adopted

Parameters Before After Percentage of households experiencing food shortages 3 3

Duration of the food shortage

- Less than 1-month shortage 0 0 - 1 to 3 months shortage 0 0 - 3 to 6 months shortage 0 0 - more than 6 months shortage

3 3

Coping mechanism

- Purchase 3 3

- Borrow

- Barter

- Labour exchange

- Other

e. Diversification and intensification The farmers of Menbi geog cultivates diverse crops, fruit trees, cash crop and vegetables. However, it was observed that the cultivation was less driven by the economics in the past. Agricultural crops are grown to meet the household consumption and feed livestock, and excess produce are occasionally sold. Now, the cultivation particularly vegetables and cash crops are driven by economics. For this high yielding variety of vegetables, cereals, fruit trees and cash crops are grown annually, and as a consequent interest on cultivating local crops (buckwheat, wheat, millets etc.) have declined. Table 5 shows % area of land cropped under different agricultural crops. It was observed that the highest % area cropped was for cereal crops (59%), followed by vegetables (23%), fruit trees (15%) and cash crop (3%). The study recorded cropped area of 2.87, 0.36, 0.30 and 0.09 acres for cereals, vegetables, cash crop and fruits trees respectively, against the average land holding size of 2.39 acres per household. Table 5 % area cropped for different agriculture crops

Percentage of area cropped1 % area Area cropped - under cereals 59

- under vegetables 23 - fruit crops 15 -under cash crops (cardamom and potato)

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Number of different crops present on the farm

- cereals 1 - vegetables 2 - Fruit crops 2 -Cash crops 1

1 Reference to cultivated area in the data

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The study also looked into diversity of agricultural crops grown by the farmers. It was observed that a variety of agricultural crops are grown in Menbi geog. Cereal crops (paddy and maize) was major agricultural crops grown, followed by vegetables, fruits trees and cash crops. The study recorded that the respondents in average have grown one (ranges between 0-4) cereal crop, two different (ranges 0-5) vegetables, 2 nos. (0-5) of fruit trees and 1 no. (ranges 0-1) of cash crop (Table 5). With exception to cash crop, farmers in Menbi geog (Menjabi and Nuebi village) grows more than one cereal crops, vegetables and fruit trees in their registered land. Almost all respondents (97%) used irrigation for cultivating wetland, and only 3% of the total respondents was found to have used irrigation scheme for dryland irrigation in winter season. As such, besides cultivating wetland, irrigation although having potential to intensify and diversify crops and livestock production have had not impacted on changes in agriculture farming so far. None of the respondents practiced double cropping. However, mixed/relay cropping of crops particularly vegetables are practiced in a small area (kitchen garden) of less than 0.01 acres. Cropping intensity, “the number of times a crop is planted per year in a given agricultural area” was estimated. The cropping intensity estimated for the study was 0.66 or 66%. This provide opportunities in maximization of land use particularly the drylands through proper arrangement of irrigation scheme or technologies.

Parameters % area Cropping intensity2 0.66 % of cultivated area under double cropping 0

f. Improved water management

Irrigation is important to the farmers of Menjabi and Nuebi village mainly for paddy cultivation. The paddy fields are irrigated by harvesting water through 4 km improved irrigation canal. The canal is open type joined by polythene pipes in a sloppy and steep locations to improve efficiency (water losses) of irrigation, reduce cost and protect environment such as landslides. All respondents have ready access to irrigation. It was estimated that of the total average area irrigated of 1.81 acres, 1.73 acres have assured irrigation (97%), and only small portion of dryland areas (3 %) are irrigated in winter months. Although, there were no formal organization in place for water utilization and management, water was shared among the beneficiaries based on the internal understanding and arrangements. With improvement in the irrigation canal in 2011 water management practices have improved, social cohesions have enhanced and consequently it had also saved time for household by not requiring to attend for the minor maintenance works.

2 Cropping intensity = (Total cropped area)/(Total cultivated area)

Season % of total cultivated area Area irrigated in Summer 97

Area irrigated in Winter 3

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g. Capacity development The village do not have water user association; however, they have a mechanism in place to share the water particularly during the paddy cultivation season. The beneficiaries’ household come together and draw a plan on how to utilize it prior to paddy cultivation. Accordingly, paddy was cultivated on rotational basis based on the plan drawn, and it was reported that with small numbers of beneficiaries the water is adequate, and conflicts on water usage is less. In absent of WUAs, minor maintenance of irrigation canal was carried out by the beneficiaries based on equal labour contribution; whereas, for major renovation supports are solicited from the geog and dzongkhag. For the water utilization for wetland cultivation the beneficiaries meet together in advance and draw a plan, and accordingly utilized the irrigation facilities on rotational basis as per planned scheduled. It was informed that water from perennial stream is adequate, and household benefitting from the irrigation scheme are small in numbers; thus, there are no conflicts on water utilization to date. The challenges foreseen by the beneficiaries are rising of maintenance cost of irrigation and protecting water source with dwindling number of beneficiaries, as of the 36 household beneficiaries, about 8 households have already left the villages. Also, unlike in the past supports from the local authority are not efficient mainly due to absent of irrigation technical staffs at dzongkhag level. Until 8 FYP, there used to be a separate irrigation sector at the dzongkhag level that overlook all irrigation related activities. The farmers of study site did not adopt any other available water harvesting or management technologies (sprinkle, reservoir, and drip irrigation) and this might be due to dependence of agriculture farming on rain water. Most crops are grown during the rainy season (summer), and lands are left fallow purposively during the winter months for the livestock to graze, and for natural fertilization from manure.

5. Other impacts observed

a. Agricultural inputs utilization Table 6 shows average amount of inputs used and its utilization trend. Of the 39 respondents in the study, 82% reported to have used agricultural inputs – chemical fertilizers, plant protection (pp) chemicals and farmyard manure to enhance crop productivity, and remaining 18% did not use any agricultural inputs. The study recorded that each household in average utilized 21 kg chemical fertilizer/acre, 14 kg pp/acre and 372 kg (12-15 backloads) FYM/acre annually. The amount of pp chemical used might sound alarming here; but the figure includes quantity of herbicides (butachlor) commonly used, which in fact was very high ranging between 10-20 kg/acre/annum. The recommend rate of herbicides is 10-12 kg per acre. The trend of chemical fertilizer utilization was reported to remain same by 67% respondents (Table 7), as that is the capacity they could afford to buy and also it is not readily available in time of need. Whereas, 22% of the respondents reported an increase in utilization of chemical fertilizer as most farmers are intensifying agricultural production. In contrast, a decline in chemical fertilizer utilisation was reported by 11% of the respondents as they plan to adopt

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organic farming; thus, more of FYM (27hh) will be required. It was recommended to use FYM or compost at the rate of 2-3 ton/acre to help maintain soil structure and quality. Table 6 Mean agriculture inpus utilized per annum

Agricultural inputs N Utilization response (hh no) Mean (Kg/acre) Yes No

Chemical fertilizer 32 18 14 21 Plant protection chemical 39 23 16 14 Farmyard manure 39 27 12 372

Table 7% household respond on the trend of agriculture inputs utilization

Agricultural inputs

N Utilization Trend (%) Increasing Decreasing Same

Chemical fertilizer 24 22 11 67 Plant protection chemical

23 52 0 48

Farmyard manure 27 22 22 56

b. Gender engagement and enhanced time use

The study generated information on gender engagement in different daily activities undertaken at household and community level (Table 8). From the table below we could generalize that both male and female are equally engaged in carrying out different tasks at household and community level with exceptions to household chores (cleaning, cooking, washing, tending to children, elderly etc.) and guarding agricultural field at nights. For instance, the female engagement on household chores (72%) was higher than the male (3%); whereas, male engagement was higher (44%) than the female (8%) in guarding agricultural fields from wild animals in the night. The nature of works defines specific gender engagement, and also it will also depend on household member size, its distribution by sex (which was recorded 54% male and 46% female) and age group. The authenticity of the findings will also depend on how accurately the respondents (which was 53% male and 47% female) have responded to the interview. The trend of gender involvement in different activities was reported to remain constant in general.

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Table 8 Gender engagement in percentage for different household activities

Activities

% Respondents % Trend Mostly

men Mostly women

Both Increasing Decreasing Same

Household chores 3 72 25 0 3 97 User Groups (Water, Road, Community Forestry, FGs, & Coops)

23 21 56 100

Agriculture farming

13 10 77 0 3 97

Livestock 11 33 56 0 5 95 NWFP collection 8 5 87 100 Post-harvest & processing

7 13 80 100

Marketing 20 26 54 5 95 Guarding crops from wildlife

44 8 48 5 3 92

Attending annual Social/domestic events

8 7 85 3 97

Meetings and survey interviews (geog, dzongkhag, Ministries)

5 18 77 3 97

6. Conclusion and recommendations Irrigation scheme plays an important role in improving livelihood of farmers in Menbi geog. However, agriculture farming being subsistence in nature, the impact of improved irrigation as such cannot be ascertained objectively in enhancement of crop productivity, intensification and diversification and in cash income generation. Establishment of improved irrigation canal have reduced the water losses along the canal, water management had improved, which ultimately had strengthened social cohesion in the villages. Construction of improved irrigation canal had saved lots of time for the household in maintenance, which was allotted to other productive activities. The existing irrigation scheme was more inclined toward wetland farming. Henceforth, the government should support and advocate farmers in adoption of cost effective dryland irrigation technologies such as reservoir, sprinklers, drip irrigation to maximize dryland cultivation. In addition, there is also a need to strengthen irrigation related technical supports to dzongkhag through revitalization of institutional arrangement.

i

Samtse Case Study Report

DawaZangpo

ICT Officer PPD

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Table of Contents

Samtse Case Study Report ............................................................................................................................. i

Acknowledgement ....................................................................................................................................... iii

Executive Summary ...................................................................................................................................... iv

Table of content

Table of content ........................................................................................................................................ 13

1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 14

2. Yoeseltse Geog .................................................................................................................................. 15

3. Methodology ..................................................................................................................................... 15

a. Study area identification ............................................................................................................... 15

b. Data and information collection ................................................................................................... 16

c. Pre-test .......................................................................................................................................... 16

d. Data collection ............................................................................................................................... 16

e. Data entry and Processing ............................................................................................................. 16

f. Study coverage and scope ............................................................................................................. 16

4. Findings ............................................................................................................................................. 17

a. Food self-sufficiency ...................................................................................................................... 17

b. Household Cash Income ................................................................................................................ 18

c. Enhanced food and nutrition security ........................................................................................... 20

d. Diversification and intensification ................................................................................................. 22

e. Capacity development ................................................................................................................... 22

f. Improved water management ...................................................................................................... 23

5. Other impacts observed .................................................................................................................... 23

a. Environmental impact ................................................................................................................... 23

b. Input utilisation ............................................................................................................................. 23

c. Enhanced time use ............................................................................................................................ 24

6. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 25

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Acknowledgement I would like to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation to management of Policy and Planning Division, Ministry of Agriculture and Forests for letting me to take party in study.

I would also like to express my earnest indebtedness to Mr. MaterneMaetz the international consultant for mentoring me on my study and as well for providing supplementary insights into improving my Study findings.

I am also very grateful to my Colleague Mr.NedrupTshewang, Engineer from Engineering Division, Department of Agriculture, Ministry of Agriculture and Forests for insightful aid during collection of data from field and Mr.Chencho Drukpa, Chief Research Officer, Policy and Planning Division for valuable contribution during analysis and reporting.

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Executive Summary For the households in treatment area, Electricity, water supply, farm road and irrigation scheme has been perceived as the most important in upbringing the lives in farmers and similar connotations were given by the farmers of control area but they disagree with irrigation scheme.

The self-sufficiency ratio from farm produced cereals appear to be slightly better in treatment area for sufficiency ratio category (below 0.50, Between 0.50 and 0.75 and Above 1.00). However, it was reported that self-sufficiency ratio below 0.5 in treatment area (29%) was more frequent than in control area (18%).

In both study areas, the average income from off-farm activities were reported highest (Nu.29750 and Nu.25000 for treatment and control respectively) whereas the income from vegetable has been lowest (Nu.2750 and Nu.1500).Both treatment and control doesn’t earn income from cereals and forest products as they never produce cereals and forest products for income generation.

The Food shortage in both study areas were high before 75% in treatment and 85.7% in control area. However, the after-irrigation scheme, the food shortage was dramatically decreased in both areas. The percentage of food shortage decreased in treatment by 31.2% and 14.3% in control area

Both in Treatment and control area inputs like Chemical fertilizers and pp chemicals were never used as the village is encouraged for being organized by local government office. Therefore, they never purchase such chemicals to be used in their land. However, Table 11 shows that the average usage of farmyard manure has been massive in the treatment area whereby farmers used around 344 kg’s per acre. However, the usage is about 185 kg/acre less in control area.

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1. Introduction

Samtse Dzongkhag had an area of approximately 1582 sq. km. and has two Drungkhags (Dorokha and Sipsu) and 16 gewogs until 2005. However, in 2006 an area of 194.8 sq. km. (35.91 sq. km. from 3 geogs (Dungtoe, Mayona and Lahereni geog) was handed over to Haa Dzongkhag.Currently, Dzongkhag has an area of 1309.1 sq. km. approximately comprising 2 Drungkhags and 15 gewogs. It is bordered by West Bengal and Sikkim (Indian states) in the south and west, Haa dzongkhag in the north and Chhukha dzongkhag in the eastrespectively. The monthly temperature ranges between 15ºc in winter to 30ºc in summer and receives an

annual rainfall between 1500-4000ml. It has an elevation of 600-800m above sea-level and lies in the sub-tropical monsoon climate zone. About 77% of the total area is under forest cover.While, 15% is under the category of others including eroded lands, water spreads and marshy areas and only 8% is under agricultural cultivation. Northern geogs apart from cultivation of paddy, the people also depend on dry land cultivation. Maize, orange and cardamom are also grown extensively. However, in the foothill geogs, wetland cultivation is an important activity and rice is the staple diet along with mustard as the main oil crop.

The main cash crops of dzongkhag are cardamom arecanut, ginger and orange. The nearest markets for these crops are the Indian State of West Bengal and the nearby local town. Some cash crops like oranges are even exported to Bangladesh. There are three types of distinct ethnic groups: Lhotsampas, Adibashi and Drukpas.

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2. Yoeseltse Geog

Yoeseltse gewog lies on a road head and about 28 kms from the Dzongkhag Headquarters. It is one of the smallest geog covering about 22.95 sq. km. of area. The gewog is bordered by Ugyentse and Norbugang geog to east, Sangngachholing geog to the west and the Indian state of west Bengal to the south and west.

Almost all parts of geog are dominated by the red and brown soil, which is porous, friable and non-retentive of moisture. Apart from this, the gewog has also sandy and loamy soils toward its south. The gewog experiences mostly heavy shower with annual rainfall ranging from 1500mm to 4000 mm. Summer is hot and humid, winter is dry and cool with mean annual temperature of 19.2 degree Celsius. Gewog falls in sub-tropical monsoon zone.

3. Methodology

a. Study area identification

Just after verbal discussion on objectives and aims of the study with Dzongkhag agriculture officer, Samtse dzongkhag we have purposely chosen the Lamitar village under Yoseltse geog as treatment area as they have irrigation scheme build before our reference year. While we have chosen Gudigang under Yoseltse geog as the control area because village don’t have irrigation scheme supported by government. The households were selected purposively

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b. Data and information collection

Household, Key informant and Focus Group Discussion questionnaire were developed with intensive discussion with Stakeholder, International Consultant and National Consultant. Moreover, during meeting with stakeholders, National Irrigation Policy was reviewed, policy impact module was developed and fixed scope of the study to formulate the questions.

The questions were developed based on Food Self Sufficiency Ratio, Improved water management, environmental damage, diversifications, Income, Enhanced time use, Food and Nutrition security, Social Cohesion and capacity.

c. Pre-test

Draft questionnaire has been pre-tested to beneficiary farmers of Wangbama Irrigation Scheme. In total, at least 12 households had been interviewed to convince problems and difficulty in questionnaires. The necessary changes in questionnaires and problems were confessed in the meeting conducted later on and corrections were made.

d. Data collection

Face-to-face household interview was conducted for the selected households from 19th - 28th April, 2016 with Computer Assisted Personal Interview(CAPI) version of CsPro mounted in Samsung Android Tablets. Further, Interviewer in the field has conducted Focus Group Discussion (FGD) and Key Informant interview for selected list of farmers for better understand the situation of village.

Data were synchronized with Dropbox server on daily basis for backup. However, the copy of data was also kept in our own system.

e. Data entry and Processing

As data collections were done in CAPI version of CsPro software developed by National consultant for project in collaboration with the study team, data entry was eased. Data merging and exporting were done by CsPro application software. The final validation, cleanings and analysis was done using SPSS version 16.

f. Study coverage and scope

In Treatment area, from household list (Provided by Assist. Dzongkhag Agriculture Officer, Samtse on our arrival) of 30, at least 16 (51% on average) were to enumerated was outlined on 1st day. The coverage was 16 (100%) of the households of 16. There was zero non-response or the absentees as we visited households to be interviewed and enumerated until we get 16 household. Whereas, in control area the household of 14 were selected for interview making 100% enumeration from the selected list of household and process were used same as in Treatment area.

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Readers are cautioned with regard to generalising the study’s findings at national level. It is just a case study of two villages within a gewog with a very small sample size. The sample was also not drawn using Probability Sampling methods but based on Non Probability sampling(Convenience) and hence the statistics publications are not accompanied with standard errors or confidence intervals. The primary goal of the exercise was on practicing policy analysis skills.

4. Findings For the households in treatment area, Electricity, water supply, farm road and irrigation scheme has been perceived as the most important in upbringing the lives in farmers and similar connotations were given by the farmers of control area but they disagree with irrigation scheme.

Keeping aside the benefits drawn from the electricity, water supply and farm road, farmers never forgot to mention about the aids clad by the irrigation scheme. The land which was left fallow was able to be cultivated and paddy plantation has not been problem since then at least in treatment area.

Farmer even cited that they are more into cash crops now leaving behind the cereals as they can earn good income from nearby markets of West Bengal, India. In addition, two shops were established in the treatment area after farm road.

a. Food self-sufficiency

Table 1 shows food self-sufficiency ratio for cereals. The figures in the table were arrived at after considering some simple assumptions. For instance, we assumed that on average cereals contain 3858 kcal per kg; although daily requirement of energy for humans depend on age, sex, gender and activity level of the person, a blanket figure of 2200 kcal per person per day as average requirement was assumed. In cereal terms, a daily requirement of 570 gm per person per day was computed.

1Food self-sufficiency ratio = (Total production of cereals in kg)/ (Sum of individual cereal requirement for each family member)

Food self-sufficiency ratio Treatment (%) Control (%)

Percentage of households with Food self-sufficiency ratio for cereals

Below 0.50 29 18 Between 0.50 and 0.75 14 9 Between 0.75 and 1.00 14 27 Above 1.00 43 45

Median of food self-sufficiency ratio for cereals for all households interviewed

0.8

0.9

Table 1. Food self-sufficiency ratio1for cereals

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The self-sufficiency ratio from farm produced cereals appear to be slightly better in treatment area for sufficiency ratio category (below 0.50, Between 0.50 and 0.75 and Above 1.00). However, it was reported that self-sufficiency ratio below 0.5 in treatment area (29%) was more frequent than in control area (18%).

However, the median self-sufficiency ratio for all households interviewed, control area again slightly better by 0.1%.

Study Group Sum of Cereal Production

Total Household size

Sum of cereal requirements in the area2

SSR3

Treatment 13353 77 16019.85 0.83

Control 10017 64 13315.2 0.75

Table 2 : Self sufficiency ratio

The table above shows the Self-sufficiency ratio of cereal by incorporating total of cereal productions and its requirement in the community. Table shows that treatment area has fare better sufficient than in control area. Treatment area has proportion of 0.83 while, 0.75 for control area.

b. Household Cash Income

Table 3 shows average income from various sources for the two groups. Income from Crop products, Fruit crops and Non-wood forest products are nil for both treatment and control area as they never earn cash income from these products. In both study areas the average income from off-farm activities were reported highest (Nu.29750 and Nu.25000 for treatment and control respectively) whereas the income from vegetable has been lowest (Nu.2750 and Nu.1500).

2Sum of cereal requirement in the area = Sum of Household size*365*0.57 3SSR = (Sum of cereal production in kg)/ (Sum of cereal requirement in the area)

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Table 4 shows proportion of respondents reporting whether their income from the various sources have increased, decreased or remained same of total interviewed households.

Income source Treatment area Control area

Increase Decrease Same Increase Decrease Same

Crop products (cereal grains) N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A Vegetables (Chilli, asparagus, cauliflowers, carrot, peas, beans)

50 0 50 0 0 100

Fruit crops (apple, orange) N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A Cash Crops(Cardamom) 50 17 33 40 0 60 Livestock products (dairy, meat, eggs and fish) 100 0 33.3 33.3 33.3

Non-wood forest products (cordyceps, mushrooms, MAP etc.)

N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A

Remittances 75 0 25 25 0 75 Other off-farm activities (business, weaving, pottering, contract works etc.)

25 0 75 33.3 33.3 33.3

Table 4. Trend of income since the irrigation scheme was established (in %)

For cereal crops, Fruits crop Non-wood forest products, it was reported none as they don’t have income from these sources.For cash crops,out of 16 household interviewed in treatment area only 2 household felt that their income remains same sharing 33% of income from cash crops. While, 3 household reported income is increasing and 1 household still feels that the

Household Cash Income sources Treatment’ area(Nu.) Control area (Nu.) Crop products (cereal grains) N/A N/A Vegetables (Chilli, asparagus, cauliflowers, carrot, peas, beans) 2800 1500

Fruit crops (apple, orange) N/A N/A

Cash crops 10083 18800

Livestock products (dairy, meat, eggs and fish) 4000 9167

Non-wood forest products (cordyceps, mushrooms, MAP etc.) N/A N/A

Remittances 16250 18500

Other off-farm activities (business, weaving, pottering, contract works etc.) 29750 25000

Table 3: Average household cash income, their Standard deviation by income source

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income is decreasing. However, in control area, 3 household felt that the income remains same and 2 household felt that the income increasing.

For livestock, in the treatment area only 1 farmers stated that his income increased. However, the trend in control area seemed to have equal among increased, decreased and remained same of 33.3% within 2 households.

Income source Treatment area (%) Control area (%) Cereals 0.0 0.0 Fruit crops 0.0 6.5 Cash Crops 23.5 32.3 Vegetables 2.13 0.5 Livestock 3.1 9.5 Forest Products 0.0 0.0 Remittances 25.2 25.4 Off-farm 46.1 25.8

Table 5: Percentage share of Cash Income

Both treatment and control doesn’t earn income from cereals and forest products as they never produce cereals and forest products for income generation. Income from Off-farm activities and vegetable has a 20.3% and 1.61% more in treatment area. However, income from Fruit crops, Cash crops, Livestock has better share in control area.There is slight difference in income share with regards to remittances which is around 25% in both areas.

c. Enhanced food and nutrition security

Table 6associates food shortage situation and coping mechanism between the two study area comparing before and after irrigation scheme. The Food shortage in both study areas were high before 75% in treatment and 85.7% in control area. However, the after-irrigation scheme,

Figure 1. Percentage share of Agricultural Income

0%0% 24%2%3%0%

25%

46%

Treatment areaCereals

Fruit crops

Cash Crops

Vegetables

Livestock

Forest Products

Remittances

Off-farm

0%7%

32%

1%9%0%

25%

26%

Control areaCereals

Fruit crops

Cash Crops

Vegetables

Livestock

Forest Products

Remittances

Off-farm

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the food shortage was dramatically decreased in both areas. The percentage of food shortage decreased in treatment by 31.2% and 14.3% in control area.

If we ponder on duration of food shortage in study area, the shortages were mostly in the category of “less than 1 month” and “between 1 to 3 month” in both areas of study. However, the food shortage is insignificant in other categories of food shortage and there is not even single household facing food shortage above 6 months in both areas. In “shortage from 1 to 3 months” category, out of 16 household interviewed, 8 households in treatment areas reported that they had food shortage before constituting around 67%. While, 6 households reported that they are facing food shortage at present assembling up to 87%.

Items Treatment Area (%) Control Area (%)

Before After Before After Percentage of households experiencing food shortages 75 43.8 85.7 71.4

Duration of the food shortage

- Less than 1-month shortage

8.3 14.3 50 80

- 1 to 3 months’ shortage

66.7 85.7 50 20

- 3 to 6 months’ shortage

25 0 0 0

- more than 6 months’ shortage

0 0 0 0

Coping mechanism

- Purchased 50 44 50 57 - Borrow 38 0 14 0 - Labour exchange 38 13 14 0

- Other 13 6 7 0 Table 6. Food security situation and coping mechanisms

In the coping mechanism section of the table, Purchase is intensive before and at present in both areas. The purchase of food has been decreased by 6% in Treatment area. While, it is increased by 3% person in control area. The significant decrease or increase mainly due to area under cultivation of cereal products are small for all households and conversion of areas to cash crops like cardamom.

It was also reported in treatment area that by 38% of household reported that they used to cope their food shortage by labour exchange before but then now, only 13% of household has categorised that they still cope by labour exchange. However, in control area, Farmers used to do labour exchange before, nonetheless they never continue now the labour exchange as coping mechanism.

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d. Diversification and intensification

The table 7 below shows that percentage of area crop under various crops. The area cropped under cereal constitute the highest (76%) while, area under fruit crops accounts as lowest in both treatment and control area. However, in treatment area, the percentage of area under cereal escalates the area in control by 10 percentage point.

The table 7 also shows that households in the treatment fairly well in terms of number of cereal crops grown in community and it is seen that the number of fruits crops and vegetables are being grown more in control area. While, number of cash crops remain equal in both the areas of survey.

Treatment area Control area

Percentage of area cropped

- under cereals 76.3 64.8 - under Fruit crops 0.6 1.0 - under cash crops 12.5 23.1 - under Vegetables 10.6 11.2

No. of different crops present on the farm

- cereals 2.6 2.1 - Fruit crops 0.3 0.9 - Cash crops 1.6 1.6 - vegetables 1.2 1.3

Share of total area under double cropping 0 0 Table 7: Crop diversification

The crop intensity is being deduce by dividing total cropped area by Total cultivated area in the field of enumeration. The cropping intensity is slightly higher in control area compared to treatment area.

e. Capacity development

There is open irrigation channel in the treatment area which was constructed in 1980’s and kept on maintaining. However, as you can see from table 9, Farmers never had management techniques like Sprinkler, Drip or Harvesting system instead they use irrigation scheme channel for irrigation of their wetland during summer season only.

Treatment area Control area Cropping intensity4 1.2 1.8 Percentage of cultivated area under double cropping 0 0

Table 8 : Crop intensity

Percentage of households adopting certain water management techniques Households (%)

Sprinkler irrigation 0 Drip irrigation 0 Water harvesting techniques 0 Table 9. Percentage of water management techniques

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f. Improved water management

We have never taken into consideration the irrigations done by means of other forms. Therefore, selected village which don’t have irrigation scheme behold by Government as study area for control. Perennial irrigation is never done as they use irrigation channel for wetlands. Moreover, there is no more of orchards and fruit crops nearby irrigation channel. While, the irrigation scheme has been used 100% by farmers in treatment area for paddy cultivation during summer.

5. Other impacts observed

a. Environmental impact

Households had never mentioned of the prominent damages to environment in relation to irrigation scheme. However, environmental affects done during contractions of schemes were all mobilized now as the irrigation was constructed way back in 80’s.

b. Input utilisation

Average amount used/acre cultivated Treatment area Control area

Average amount of chemical fertilizer used (kg/acre) 0 0

Average amount of plant protection chemical used(kg/acre) 0 0

Average amount of farmyard manure used (kg/acre) 344.2 159.3

Table 11. Average amount of Input use by cultivated area.

Both in Treatment and control area inputs like Chemical fertilizers and pp chemicals were never used as the village is encouraged for being organized by local government office. Therefore, they never purchase such chemicals to be used in their land. However, Table 11 shows that the average usage of farmyard manure has been massive in the treatment area whereby farmers used around 344 kg’s per acre. However, the usage is about 185 kg/acre less in control area.

Type of irrigation Treatment area (%) Control area (%)

Assured irrigation (perennial) 0 0

Seasonally irrigated 100 0

Table 10. Percentage of cultivated area by type of irrigation

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Inputs Treatment Control

Increased Decreased Same Increased Decreased Same

Chemical fertilizers N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A

PP chemicals N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A

Farmyard Manure 30 20 50 33.3 16.7 50

Table 12: Trend of input utilization by study area

The trend in usage of inputs like chemical fertiliser and PP chemicals are not applicable as they never used. While, the 50% in both the area of study felt that the farmyard manure usage has remained same from before but the feelings that the decreased in usage of Farmyard manure has been lowest (20 and 17) percent among all trends in both areas.

c. Enhanced time use

Activities Treatment area (%) Control area (%)

Mostly men

Mostly women Both Mostly

men Mostly women Both

Household chores 0 31.2 68.8 0 28.6 71.4

User Groups 18.8 31.2 50 64.3 7.1 28.6

Agriculture farming 6.2 6.2 87.6 7.1 7.1 85.8

Livestock 18.8 18.8 62.4 28.6 7.1 64.3

NWFP collection 43.8 18.8 37.4 57.1 14.3 28.6

Post-harvest & processing 12.6 31.2 56.2 0 28.6 71.4

Marketing 25 37.5 37.5 42.9 7.1 50

Guarding crops from wildlife 37.4 18.8 43.8 28.6 14.3 57.1

Attending annual events 37.5 31.3 31.2 35.7 7.1 57.2

Meetings and survey interviews 50 18.8 31.2 57.1 7.2 35.7 Table 13: Difference of distribution of activities among genders in treatment and control

areas

From table 13, most of the activities in the study area is being carried out by both men and women. Activities like NWFP collection, Meetings and Survey interview are mostly carried out by Men while the Household chores, Post-harvesting & processing predominantly carried out by men in both study areas.

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6. Conclusion The findings from the study confirms that there are lots of changes for the households interviewed but I cannot purview that all changes are affirmatively due toirrigationschemes but it is one of the upcoming developmental activities in the community to improve agriculture productions especially paddy. However, the other facilities like School, health services and farm roads might also have contributed in changing the life styles of households interviewed in the community.

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Irrigation Impact study

Case study report – Silsiley Kulo irrigation scheme in Jigmecholing gewog, Sarpang

Tashi Yangzom, Sr. Planning Officer, Policy and Planning Division

ii

Table of Contents Acknowledgement .......................................................................................................................... iii

Executive Summary ......................................................................................................................... iv

Table of Contents 1. Introduction and background .......................................................................................... 26

a. Geographical context of the irrigation scheme analysed ............................................. 26

b. Economic context .......................................................................................................... 27

c. Administrative context .................................................................................................. 27

d. History of the irrigation scheme ................................................................................... 28

2. Methodology .................................................................................................................... 28

a. Delineation of the ‘treatment’ and ‘control’ settlements ............................................ 28

b. Data collection ............................................................................................................... 29

c. Data Analysis and drafting of report ............................................................................. 30

d. Limitations ..................................................................................................................... 30

3. Findings ................................................................................................................................. 31

a. Objectives pursued ........................................................................................................... 31

i. Food self-sufficiency ...................................................................................................... 31

ii. Increased cash income .................................................................................................. 33

iii. Enhanced food and nutrition security ....................................................................... 36

iv. Diversification and intensification ............................................................................. 37

v. Capacity development ................................................................................................... 38

vi. Improved water management ................................................................................... 39

Other impacts observed ........................................................................................................... 40

i. Environmental impact ................................................................................................... 40

ii. Social cohesion .............................................................................................................. 41

iii. Gender and enhanced time use ................................................................................ 42

4. Conclusion and Recommendation ................................................................................... 43

References: ............................................................................................................................... 44

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Acknowledgement At the outset, this study would not have materialized without the kind support and contributions made by so many people and organizations. I would like to sincerely thank and acknowledge the support from Dzongkhag Administration, Sarpang and Jigmecholing gewog. In particular, I would like to acknowledge the support of Mr. Chimmi Wangchuk, Asst. District Agriculture Officer, Mr. Karma Choezang and Mr. Ugyen Gyaltshen, Agriculture Extension Officers of Jigmecholing and Taraythang Gewogs and the village tshogpa for facilitating necessary arrangements for the successful completion of the field survey and being part as the survey interviewer. I would also like to thank Mr. Khando Tshering, Engineer, Department of Agriculture for the continued support and cooperation extended in successfully conducting the field research. The cooperation extended by the communities of Bichgaon A and Samkhar village under Jigmecholing gewog in patiently responding to the questions and sharing their experiences despite their busy schedule was also very appreciative. I would also to place on record the continued guidance and feedbacks received from Mr. Materne Maetz, International Consultant for his concerted efforts throughout the process in shaping this report. The support received from the National Consultant, Mr. Sangay Tempa in helping develop the study instruments and capacitating us on the statistical tools for the data analysis was also very appreciative. Finally, the study would not have materialized without the technical and financial assistance provided by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) through the Technical Cooperation Project ‘Capacity development for Policy impact studies’.

iv

Executive Summary Irrigation is considered as the life line for agriculture development and is one of the priority areas of investment for the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests (MOAF) during the 11FYP. There are however, very little studies documented on the impacts of irrigation. This report based on a case study area in Jigmecholing gewog under Sarpang is an attempt to study the impacts of irrigation particularly in terms of enhancing food self-sufficiency, food and nutrition security, income, crop diversification and intensification among others. The findings of the study are based on the comparison between Bichgaon A village- the beneficiaries of the silisiley kulo irrigation scheme and that of samkhara village where irrigation is an issue. The assessment was done through household interviews using structured questionnaires supplemented with other study instruments such as focus group discussions, key informant interviews and transact walk. Overall, local communities in both treatment and control areas highlighted cultivation of cash crops mainly cardamom as one of the most significant change in their communities. Fallow land cultivation with paddy and vegetables was another major change that the treatment area communities had perceived. This change was attributed mainly to the availability of irrigation as inadequate supply of water among other factors such as labour and soil productivity in the past had hindered cultivation of wetlands. In terms of cereal self-sufficiency, analysis suggests that where irrigation is available there is a higher self-sufficiency ratio (SSR) 92% than control where SSR is about 56%. Increasing trends in cereal production was also reported in area with irrigation than in control area. While both treatment and control areas did not have surplus cereal productions, treatment area did seem to have lesser dependence on the markets for purchase of food mainly cereals. The main source of cash income for both study areas is from cardamom contributing 56% and 38% of the household income in control and treatment areas. Income from crop products is negligible in both study areas since cereal productions are primarily taken up for domestic consumption. So, the impact of an eventual increase in production due to irrigation is likely felt in lower purchase of cereals, higher food self-sufficiency and better food security. From the farmers’ perspective, access to irrigation enabled them to cultivate assorted vegetables as relay cropping with paddy mostly for domestic consumption and therefore did not translate in cash income generation. Although very meager in quantitative terms, 80% of the respondents in treatment area mentioned there was increase in income from vegetables as compared to past. With the availability of irrigation, vegetables, paddy and cardamom were new crops that had emerged in treatment area while in control area the preference for cardamom-a high return crop perpetuated by the lack of irrigation is resulting in the gradual loss of paddy cultivators. Households experiencing food shortage has drastically reduced compared to past in both the study areas. The prominence of purchase as the most common coping mechanism shows the increased reliance on a monetized economy for food security. Findings from the study indicate

v

that where there is irrigation, crop cultivation and livestock development is more. Despite limitations of the study in assessing improvements in nutrition, the increasing trends in vegetable production being reported in the treatment area are positive indications and inferences on the utilization of more nutritious food now than in the past can thus be drawn. Where irrigation seems to have made direct impacts is on the crop diversification and intensification, which is also one of the policy objectives of the irrigation policy. Analysis from the case study areas show that a typical farm in the treatment area has a higher diversity of crops being grown than the control area farm indicating that land utilization and crop diversification is better in the treatment area than in the control. In terms of cropping intensity, treatment and control areas have a cropping intensity of 170% and 85% respectively confirming that irrigation leads to more intensive utilization of land. Irrigation policy also stipulates the need to promote new technologies for irrigation diversification beyond paddy crop but irrigation is mainly confined to wetlands in the case study area. There are thus gaps in implementation of the policy at least in the case study area analysed. Overall based on the assessment, irrigation is indeed a priority for increasing land productivity, enhancing food security, increasing prospects for multiple cropping and crop diversification and earning higher and more stable incomes for improved rural livelihoods.

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1. Introduction and background

a. Geographical context of the irrigation scheme analysed Sarpang Dzongkhag, located in the central southern foothills of the country, is one of the boarder Dzongkhags and is administratively divided into 12 gewogs. Sarpang is about 227 km from the capital city and is bordered by Zhemgang, Tsirang and the Indian state of Assam. A large part of the district is protected within the national parks and wildlife sanctuary. Jigmecholing is one of the biggest gewogs under Sarpang Dzongkhag with a total area of 471.5 sq km and population of 5,759 (NSB, 2016). It is located on the Gelephu-Zhemgang highway and is at a slightly higher altitude than other Gewogs. It experiences cool temperate climate and altitude ranges from 2000-2600m. The climatic condition thus is favourable for production of all kinds of cereals and cash crops. Farmers in the gewog mainly grow cardamom and orange as the main source of cash income. The main field crops grown in the gewog comprise of paddy, maize, millet and other minor cereals such as finger millet, foxtail millet and buckwheat. Compared to other gewogs under Sarpang, Jigmecholing has one of the highest paddy production and substantially contributes to overall Dzongkhag paddy production (DoA, 2016). The gewog is equipped with basic facilities and houses two Basic Health Units (BHUs); two out-reach clinics; one Renewable Natural Resource (RNR) centre and three community primary schools. The villages selected as the treatment and control areas for the study are both located under Jigmecholing gewog and share almost similar climatic conditions and population demographics (as show in figure 2).

Figure 1: Geographic map of Bhutan showing case study area

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Treatment area: Bichgaon A village, the main beneficiaries of silsilay kulo irrigation scheme is the treatment area for this study. The village is about 1 km from the gewog centre, about 66 km away from the Dzongkhag administration and 33 km from Gelephu town-the main market area. It has a total of about 25 households and female constitute 52.6% of the population. The village has a fairly young and educated population with average age of 31.4 years and about 66.7% with some level of education. Majority of the population (60.5%) are employed on-farm. Average household size is about 5.8 members and mean current land holdings is about 3.25 acres with very less variations. Female headed households account for a meagre 15%. Control Area: The control village Samkhara under the same gewog is about 10 km from the gewog centre and is also located closer to the Sarpang-Zhemgang national highway like the treatment area. It shares similar population dynamics as the treatment area with an average age of 35.3 years and 60.2% being literate. Average household size is about five members and female headed household account for only 16%. Mean current land holding stands at 4.6 acres with higher variations.

b. Economic context

Agriculture farming, mainly cash crops such as cardamom, is one of the main economic activities for the communities of the gewog and that of Bichgaon A and Samkhara villages in particular. The suitable climatic condition of the gewog makes it favourable for year round cultivation of many crop and horticultural commodities. Moreover, it’s location on the national highway and at close proximity to the Indian border towns presents the potentials to accelerate agricultural productions and sales to markets within and across the borders during the off-season months.

c. Administrative context

Jigmecholing gewog is administratively sub-divided into six chiwogs. It is administered by an elected Gup, who in turn is assisted by the Gewog Administration Officer (GAO), Gedung and Mangmi.

0

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Someeducation

No Education on Farm Off-farm

Education Employment

ControlTreatment

Picture1: Livestock produce of Gewog

Figure 2: Education and employment status of the study areas

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The gewog administration has the overall mandate to plan and administer the development activities of the gewog. As such the monitoring of civil works including irrigation infrastructure rests with the gewog administration in particular the agriculture extension officer and the Gup. Technical backstopping to irrigation services is provided by the Dzongkhag Engineer and the Engineering Division at the central level. Local organizations in terms of farmers groups and cooperatives are at a nascent stage. The gewog has a livestock group and forestry group who are engaged in producing processed products like honey and bamboo shoot pickles that are being marketed. While there are no agriculture groups at the moment, a vegetable group is being planned to be formed.

d. History of the irrigation scheme Silsilay kulo irrigation scheme was constructed sometimes in the 1970s by the local communities at their own initiative. Initially benefitting about seven households, the beneficiaries of the scheme have now been expanded to about 25 households in Bichgaon A village at present. It is an open channel irrigation type and over the years government through the gewog had assisted in the renovation of the scheme, the latest one being in 2008. Thus, 2008 was used as a reference year in assessing the before situation. Provision of construction materials like cement, fencing, tanks etc., was provided to the communities who contributed labour in the maintenance works. With this assistance, some part of the irrigation channel was made of concrete particularly in the unstable areas that got washed away by landslides during monsoon. Discussions with the communities during the Focus Group Discussions (FGD) highlighted that the canal is being maintained at least twice a year by themselves. A formal mechanism of community level management through water user association (WUA) is not there. However, the maintenance of the canal mainly during the monsoon season is coordinated and mobilised by a village elder Mr. Kunzang, an ex-government official respected by everyone in the community.

2. Methodology

a. Delineation of the ‘treatment’ and ‘control’ settlements In order to ascertain the impacts of irrigation to the communities, the study compared the situation of Bichgaon ‘A’ communities who directly benefitted from the silsilay kulo irrigation with that of control area in Samkhar village where irrigation was an issue. The treatment area was selected from an initial inventory of 821 functional schemes at the national level, which was classified into six categories based on three criteria:

Picture2: Silsiley Kulo Irrigation

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• the size of scheme (cut-off point of 60 acres was used) • Whether or not it is located in priority Dzongkhag for rice commercialization, which

presumably would determine the support received and • Whether it is part or not of the Southern belt (more potential for agriculture

production) The treatment area for this study was then selected from a list of 105 irrigation schemes under the Small sized, Priority dzongkhag and Southern belt (SPS) category. Following this selection, Dzongkhag and Gewog was consulted to reconfirm the treatment area and to choose an appropriate control area within the same Dzongkhag and preferably in the same gewog with similar agro-ecological conditions. Samkhar village under the same gewog as the treatment area was selected following the consultative process with the gewog and Dzongkhag and also revalidated during the field visit. The two study (treatment and control) locations had the similar situation such as altitude, terrain, demography and access with the only visible difference being the access to irrigation facilities in the treatment area.

b. Data collection

Listing of household beneficiaries of the irrigation scheme was electronically collected from the Gewog office prior to field survey to compute the sample size. Since the total number of beneficiary households of the scheme was small (25 households), the decision was made to interview the entire beneficiary households. This listing was further verified in the field along with the drawing up of schedule for the household interviews. Unlike treatment, for the control area the list could not be collected electronically as the control area selection was only done during the consultation with the gewog office in the field. Sample selection of households in control thus was done through convenience sampling from the household listing for the village obtained from the gewog office during the meeting with the gewog. Primary data from the field in both treatment and control areas was collected through three approaches: household level data through structured household interviews; Key informant interviews (KII) and FGDs. Unlike other surveys, individual household interviews were conducted using the CSentry applications programmed in the hand-held Samsung Android tablets. This allowed for flexibility to download data directly from the tablets, concatenate and export them to SPSS to check for consistency while still in the field. The team was supported for the field work by the Asst. District Agriculture Officer and the Agriculture extension officers of the Jigmecholing and Taraythang geogs. Data collection in the field was carried out in April, 2016 over duration of ten days. A brief meeting at the gewog centre was organised with the geydrung and the gewog extension officer prior to undertaking the survey to get an understanding of the study area and to revalidate the households for the interview. Discussion with the tshogpa was made to draw the survey schedule and to inform and request households to render cooperation and support during the interviews that would follow. This was followed by a transect walk from the water source along the irrigation channel in the treatment village to gain an overview understanding of the irrigation scheme and the catchment area by taking coordinate readings using GPS.

30

A total of 20 households in the Bichgaon A (treatment area) and 19 households in Samkhar (control area) were interviewed using the structured questionnaire. 35.9% of the respondents were female. Two separate FGDs were conducted in the treatment and control areas for duration of about two hours each. FGD in the treatment area comprised of 6 male and 3 female farmers while in control area it was 5 male and 4 female members. These farmers were selected based on consensus among the communities drawing upon their interest to be part of the interview. Key informant interviews were also conducted with four key informants each in the treatment and control areas. The FGDs and Key informant interviews were conducted to triangulate/ascertain the findings from the household interviews and to get detailed information and insights. Key informants included the village tshogpa, the gewog agriculture extension officer and few other informed communities that were selected from our interactions during the household interviews.

Picture3 & 4: Household interviews and FGD members

c. Data Analysis and drafting of report

Data imported from the tablets were exported to and analysed using SPSS 16.1 (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) software and Microsoft Excel. Basic analytical tools such as frequency, crosstabs, compare means, correlate were used to generate results. Qualitative information collected through FGDs and Key Informant Interviews were used to interpret and substantiate the results.

d. Limitations

Despite our best efforts, there were several limitations to the study: • The delineation of the control area was one of the limitations. While the control area

was indeed one that had issues with irrigation, there were instances where some households were somehow managing to cultivate during the monsoon season.

• In the absence of baseline data for the study areas against which comparison can be made of the impact of the scheme, it was difficult to attribute change entirely to the irrigation scheme.

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3. Findings

Local communities in both treatment and control areas highlighted the cultivation of cash crops mainly cardamom as one of the most significant change in their communities. Cardamom cultivation has picked up as an important source of cash income and it was also mentioned that cardamom has become so important that people in control areas reverted to planting cardamom in their wetland areas as well while some others irrigated the cardamom orchards with their drinking water provisions. The cultivation of fallow land with paddy and vegetables was another major change that the treatment area communities had perceived. This change was attributed to the availability of irrigation as inadequate supply of water among other factors such as labour and soil productivity in the past had hindered cultivation of wetlands.

Table 1: Most important perceived changes by local population

‘treatment’ area ‘control’ area

1. Cash crop cash crop cultivation mainly cardamoms

cash crop cultivation mainly cardamoms

2. Wetland utilization Paddy and vegetable cultivations

Urban developments

The households interviewed in the treatment area emphasized that the silsiley irrigation scheme had benefitted everyone alike in the community with no adverse impacts on any one household. There were thus neither main gainers nor losers as such from the irrigation scheme. However, it was noted through personal observation from the field that the upstream dwellers in particular were at a more advantageous position than the others living downstream.

a. Objectives pursued

i. Food self-sufficiency Irrigation is considered the lifeline of agriculture production and lack of assured irrigation water is often cited as one of the key vulnerabilities for food security. The 11FYP of the ministry has identified irrigation as one of the key themes to be pursued to achieve its food self-sufficiency and food security targets (MoAF, 2013). Enhanced food self sufficiency was thus one of the impacts one would expect to see with access to irrigation. Cereals (in particular rice and maize) being one of the most important crops, cereal self-sufficiency is often taken as synonymous to food self-sufficiency. Self-sufficiency ratio1 for cereals was thus computed for households in both treatment and control areas using few assumptions to determine whether there was indeed an impact. The average cereals contain 3858 kcal per kg based on average energy content of rice, maize and

1 Cereal self-sufficiency ratio = (Total production of cereals in kg)/(Sum of individual cereal requirement for each family member)

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wheat. Although daily requirement of energy for humans vary depending on age, sex and activity level of the person, a blanket figure of 2200 kcal per person per day as average requirement was calculated (FAO, 2001)2. Using these figures, a daily requirement per person of cereals was calculated to be 570 grams.

The household self-sufficiency ratio for cereals (Table 2) shows that there was not much of a difference in impact in both treatment and control group. As shown in table 2 above, the median food self-sufficiency for cereals stands at 82% and 88% respectively for the treatment and control areas. The median value of food self-sufficiency ratio was considered rather than mean to nullify the influence from outliers. Further, 42% of the households in the treatment area have cereal self-sufficiency ratio of more than one while the corresponding figure for control area is 46%. Similarly, more proportion of households (21%) in the treatment area has cereal self-sufficiency as low as 0.5 compared to 15% households in control area. These findings tend to suggest that the food self-sufficiency at the household level seems to be slightly better in control than treatment. Nevertheless, 58% of the households in the treatment area also reported of increasing trends in paddy production as compared to 46% in control.

Table 2: Household food self-sufficiency ratio for cereals In ‘treatment’ area In ‘control’ area Percentage of households with Food self-sufficiency ratio for cereals

More than 1 42 46 Between 0.75 and 1

21 8

Between 0.5 and 0.75

16 31

Less than 0.5 21 15 Value (median)of food self-sufficiency ratio for cereals for all households interviewed

0.82 0.88

Thus, an alternative and better way of looking at self-sufficiency ratio is through computing the ratio between the total production and total requirements for the respective study sites by considering them in totality as a village and not as sum of individual households in the study areas (Table 3). Computing the SSR through this methodology, Treatment area appears to perform better in cereal self-sufficiency with a higher self-sufficiency ratio than control where SSR is about 56%.

Table 3: Comparison of the Cereal self-sufficiency ratio for study areas

Study Area Total Production

(in Kg) Total

Population Total cereal

Requirement Cereal SSR

Treatment 22196 116 24134 0.92

Control 11196 96 19973 0.56

2 http://www.fao.org/3/a-y5686e.pdf

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Based on this computation both study areas do not have surplus cereal production, which was indeed confirmed through the focus group discussions as well. However, treatment area does seem to have lesser dependence on the markets for purchase of food mainly cereals. The emphasis on cardamom cultivation for cash income generation rather than food crops in the control area likely explains their lesser SSR. The higher SSR reported and the increase trends in cereal productions reported indicates that where irrigation is available, cereal self-sufficiency is likely to be more. The differences in the percent households reporting SSR (as in Table 2) may also likely be due to the inclusion of all cereals in the estimation of self-sufficiency ratio although irrigation caters mainly to paddy cultivation. The two most common cereals in both areas were rice and maize and the inclusion of maize likely resulted in the escalation of the figures.

ii. Increased cash income It is generally envisaged that access to irrigation increases the opportunity for crop intensity and diversification, which increase cropping cash income. Based on the average cash income reported (Table 4), the main source of cash income is from other off-farm activities followed by cash crops in the treatment area. While in the control area, remittances followed by cash crops feature as the main cash income source. However, we also note that the variations in income is higher for the off farm and remittances (as explained by the huge difference in standard deviation) indicating that the average income from these sources is influenced by few rich households.

Table 4: Current level of average (household) cash income (in Nu)

In ‘treatment’ area In ‘control’ area Income (Nu.) SD Income (Nu.) SD Crop products (cereal grains) 6000 - 0 - Vegetables (Chilli, asparagus, cauliflowers, carrot, peas, beans)

2830 3062 1671 1303

Fruit crops (apple, orange) 9309 8916 1212 1223 Cash crops (potato, cardamom, arecanut)

32,950 31,995 60,906 65,665

Livestock products (dairy, meat, eggs and fish)

21,309 19,578 10,500 7483

Non-wood forest products (cordyceps, mushrooms, MAP etc.)

0 0

Remittances 13,500 18,425 80,750 170,131* Other off-farm activities (business, weaving, pottering, contract works etc.)

108,800

215,597* 27,143

23,603

Total cash income 194,698 182,182

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Thus, if we consider the number of households reporting cash income sources and share of cash income (Figure 3), cash crops mainly cardamom appears as the main source contributing 56% and 38% of household income in treatment and control areas respectively. A comparison of the average income from cash crops across treatment and control areas show that control area has a much higher income (nearly two-fold) than those of the treatment area. This may be attributed to the higher cropped area under cardamom and subsequent higher productions in control area as compared to the treatment area. The difference in cropped area under cardamom is due to certain portion of land being used for paddy cultivation in the treatment area even though the total land holdings in both area are similar. Although small in proportion, income from vegetables is higher for the treatment area then control with comparatively lesser variations in the income than from other sources. Income from crop products is negligible in both study areas since cereal productions are primarily taken up for domestic consumption as explained by the cereal self-sufficiency ratio above, which is 92 % for treatment and 56% for control areas. So, the impact of an eventual increase in production due to irrigation is likely felt in lower purchase of cereals, higher food self-sufficiency and better food security. The treatment area however did not have a surplus production of paddy despite the availability of irrigation since paddy cultivation is considered a low return crop with intensive investments cost. The share of income from cash crops in both areas were significantly more than expected (Figure 3).

Picture5: Cardamom plantations Picture6: Intercropping in farmer’s field

Figure 3: Share of income from various sources by study areas

1%

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38%

16%

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15.20%

cereals

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forest…

remittances

off-farm

‘control’ area ‘treatment’ area

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Some of the striking changes as reported by the variations in the income from various sources (Table 5) that could likely be attributed to irrigation are the increase in income from vegetables reported by 80% of the respondents in the treatment area and 71.8% of respondents in control group. This was also confirmed through the focus group discussion findings where majority of the communities from the treatment area asserted that with irrigation facilities, there was proper management of water that had enabled them to start cultivating vegetables as relay cropping with paddy although mostly for domestic consumption. Post irrigation, vegetables, paddy and cardamom were new crops that had emerged in treatment area while in control area the preference for cardamom-a high returns crop perpetuated by the lack of irrigation is resulting in the gradual loss of paddy cultivators.

Table 5: Variation of household cash income since the irrigation scheme was established (in %) In ‘treatment’ area In ‘control’ area

Increase Decrease Same Increase Decrease Same Crop products (cereal grains) 5 Vegetables 80 10 10 71.4 28.6 Fruit crops 55 36 9 25 75 Cash crop(Potatoes, cardamom)

100 88 12

Livestock products 92 9 40 60 NWFPs - - 5 - - - Remittances 33 50 17 75 13 12 Other off-farm activities (business, weaving, pottering, contract works etc.)

90 10 100

The emergence of cardamom however cannot be attributed to irrigation as cardamom happened to re-emerge as an income crop following the decline in production due to epidemic outbreak of both viral and fungal disease in the 1990s. Rather, the opportunities for enhanced income generation, efforts of research, extension support and the supply of disease free planting materials amongst others by the MoAF could have influenced the preference for cardamom plantation. Overall, variation of income from cash crops was reported to have increased in 100% of the households in the treatment area and about 87% households in the control which could be true as cardamom cultivation as cash crop are recent trends that have emerged post irrigation in the communities. This was also noted through observations in the field with most households cultivating cardamom in the dry lands and some even in their wetland areas (mostly confined in control area). To further enhance their income from the current levels, communities reiterated the need for continued supply of irrigation water. The construction of a water reservoir to enable proper storage and utilization was suggested as a measure that could help them irrigate their vegetable gardens as well. Another possibility proposed was to tap water from a new source at kabrichhu, located in the GRF land about 5km away from the present irrigation source. Communities mentioned that the later suggestion to tap water from an alternate

36

source was proposed to gewog following which survey and feasibility study were done twice from the Dzongkhag but there had been no follow up actions thereafter.

iii. Enhanced food and nutrition security The reported number of months per annum that a household is unable to provide three meals per day to its members either from own production or through purchase was used as a measure of food security. Table 6 shows the differences in food shortage situations in the treatment and control areas and the coping mechanisms being adopted to overcome the shortage. The proportion of households experiencing food shortage in both areas has reduced drastically as compared to before situation but is significantly more in the treatment area. These households are all male-headed and also had a lower cereal self-sufficiency ratio. Purchase is the most common means of ensuring food security, which is likely true since most of the farmers (particularly more in the control areas) emphasize on cultivation of cash crops such as cardamom as it has higher returns and purchase food with the income earned. This is also the plausible explanation for none of the control households reporting food shortage at present.

Table 6: Household food security situation and coping mechanisms In ‘treatment’ area In ‘control’ area Before After Before After Percentage of households experiencing food shortages

10 5 5.3 0

Duration of the food shortage

- Less than 1 month - 1 to 3 months 50 100 100 - 3 to 6 months 50 - more than 6 months

Coping mechanism

- Purchase 90% 95% 94.7% 100% - Borrow 5% 0 - Barter 0 - Labour exchange 5% 0 - Other 5%(1) 5.3%

This study has its limitations in assessing the improvement in nutrition security situation. However, as reported by most farmers during the household interviews and the FGDs, the practise of maintaining kitchen gardens and cultivating assorted vegetables for domestic consumption has been one of the major changes in the village. The trends in vegetable production in the study area (Figure 4) show that more than 60% of the households in treatment area reported increasing trends in vegetable and attributed it mainly to road connectivity and

Figure 4: Trends in vegetable production in study areas

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increase Decrease Same Increase Decrease Same

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access to markets and irrigation. The cultivation and consumption of different vegetable varieties in addition to the livestock products (which are also mostly for household consumption) have positive impacts for food and nutrition security and inferences on the utilization of more nutritious food now than in the past can thus be drawn. Findings from the study indicate that where irrigation is available, crop cultivation and livestock development is more. As the practise of mixed integrated farming system is extensive in the country with households maintaining few livestock alongside cultivation of crops, there is a complementarity from one system to another. Thus, the enhanced cultivation of assorted crops, brought about by improved access to water and other complementary interventions (such as improved management practices, improved crop variety, extension services etc..) results in more feed (from crop residues) availability for livestock resulting in development of livestock .

iv. Diversification and intensification Availability of irrigation water and its impact on diversification and intensification of agriculture farming were analysed. Table 7 shows the difference in percentage of area cropped and diversity of crops being grown on farm in the treatment and control areas. The proportion of areas cropped under cereals and vegetables are higher in treatment area while control area has a higher cropped area of fruits and cash crops. This suggests that where irrigation was a problem, farmers had more cropped area under fruits and cash crops (cardamom), which require substantially lesser water than paddy and vegetables. However, if we consider the diversity of crops being cultivated, a typical farm in the treatment area has a higher diversity of cereals, vegetables, fruit crops and cash crops being grown than a control area farm indicating that land utilization and crop diversification is better in the treatment area than in the control. This could be attributed to access to irrigation in treatment area that enabled them to re-cultivate fallow wetlands and practise mixed and relay cropping. Farmers were mostly growing cardamom intercropped with fruit trees or maize with chillies and beans.

Table 7: Crop diversification: difference in crops cultivated between ‘treatment’ and ‘control’ areas ‘treatment’ area ‘control’ area Percentage of area cropped - under cereals 60.5 53

- under vegetables 6.2 5 - under fruit crops 4.9 7 -under cash crops 28.4 36

Number of different crops present on the farm

- cereals 2.1 1.3 - vegetables 4.45 3.7 - Fruit crops 2.8 2.1

-Cash crops 2.4 1.8 Share of total area under double cropping 0 0

There were no trends of double cropping in either treatment or control area due to their high dependence on rain water for irrigation amongst other reasons. In our interactions with the farmers, they mentioned that the availability of water in winter months was an issue even though some of them were interested in winter cropping. While majority of them were

38

also of the opinion that they preferred to leave their lands fallow in winter to allow for their cattle to graze and for them to relax until the next cropping season. Intensification: difference between ‘treatment’ and ‘control’ areas Cropping intensity defined as the raising of a number of crops from the same area in a given year is the ratio of net cropped area to net cultivated/sown area. The cropping intensity index therefore is 100 if one crop has been grown in a year and 200 if the same area has been cropped twice. This implies that higher the cropping intensity, greater is the efficiency of land use.

Figure 5: Cropping intensity by study areas

As shown in figure 5, the treatment and control areas have a cropping intensity of 170% and 85% respectively. This means that treatment area Bichgaon A in general have more intensive utilization of land as compared to control area where there seems to be underutilization of land (below 100%). As access to assured irrigation enables farmers to maximise utilization of land through the practise of mixed, relay and double cropping, the higher index of cropping intensity can be attributed to the availability of irrigation in the treatment area considering other factors remain constant. This was expected as key informants in the treatment area asserted that they were increasingly cultivating vegetables apart from paddy with the availability of irrigation. On the contrary, communities in control area had lower efficiency of land use as they were confined mainly to cardamom cultivation largely due to increasing returns from cardamom. Further, lack of access to irrigation limited the opportunities for cultivation to only one crop per year. The increased diversity of crops being grown on farm in the treatment area than control as explained above (refer table 7) also confirm this findings.

v. Capacity development There are no formal WUAs for management of the irrigation scheme in the community. Informal mechanisms however are in place to mobilise people during the monsoon season for minor canal maintenance work. The maintenance work initiated at least twice a year is

0%

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Cropping Intensity

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mobilised through the representation of a member each from all the household beneficiaries and is mobilised by a water guard/caretaker. Despite the presence of a canal, irrigation water needs to be shared among the communities during paddy cultivation. Informal mechanisms for water sharing based on traditional norms and agreed among the communities are in place to ensure water is shared on a rotation basis. This and the findings on the poor awareness and adoption of water management technologies indicate that there are areas for capacity enhancement that could be improved. Thus, although the National Irrigation Policy stipulates the requirement for water user association to be put in place for community management of irrigation scheme, this was not evident in the case study area analysed.

vi. Improved water management Water management as evident from figure below is better in the treatment area with 52% of cultivated land under summer irrigation and a lower 12.5% under irrigation in winter. The case of box 1 reflects the challenges with water availability. In the control area, although there was no irrigation scheme as such communities were managing to irrigate some part of their wetland during the main cropping season in summer.

Table 8: Proportion of area under summer and winter irrigation

Further, there were some cases of improved technology adoption in the treatment area with 30% of the interviewed households reporting adoption of sprinklers. Apart from sprinklers, alternative water management technologies such as drip, water harvesting techniques etc are but little known in the community. It was also observed that irrigation caters mainly to wetland cultivation although there were few incidences of irrigating fruit crops and cardamom in the dryland areas as well. Thus, although the irrigation policy emphasizes the promotion of new technologies for irrigation diversification beyond paddy crop, there has been little progress in the implementation at least in the case study area being analysed.

‘treatment’ area ‘control’ area % of total cultivated area % of total cultivated area

Assured irrigation (area irrigated in summer)

52 (86% of total wetland cultivated under assured)

27.6 (57% of total wetland cultivated under assured)

Irrigated in winter 12.5 0.09

Box1 : Key informant on irrigation challenges According to Govinda Bhandarai, a key informant from the treatment area, while they had sufficient water in summer, water availability in winter was a problem as their irrigation was rain-fed. Uniform availability of water was a concern with too much water often causing flooding in summer and none at all in winter. Over the years he had also noted that the water supply was gradually declining with the growing population and the upstream dwellers cutting off forests. Nevertheless, vegetable production in the village had definitely enhanced since irrigation scheme was constructed. He mentioned that current production volume was small and individualistic although there were potentials for commercial production. It was suggested that water reservoir could be a possibility to irrigate vegetable gardens and encourage production enhancement.

40

0 0 10

90

4060

0 0 0

100

63.2

36.8

Yes No Yes No Yes No

Chemical Fertilizers PP Chemicals FYM

Treatment Control

Other impacts observed

i. Environmental impact The impact on the environment from irrigation mainly in terms of land loss from degradation and declining soil fertility was found to be negligible in the treatment area. The impact on loss of land from landslides as reported by few respondents were mainly due to soil instability exacerbated by management issues with no proper and timely clearings being done particularly during the monsoon months that result in flooding from the source. There was no clear demarcation of water source for the irrigation and therefore there were no mechanisms for water source protection. Some key informants however mentioned of the initiatives taken in forbidding people to clear forests near the source. While one would expect negative impact on the soil as a result of increased application of inputs (mainly chemical and PP chemicals) with intensifying land use from assured access to irrigation, this was not the case. The usage of chemical fertilizers and PP chemicals was very minimal in both treatment and control areas as shown in figure 7. This is true as DOA (2016) reported that the practise of soil fertility management is generally poor in the southern Dzongkhags as shown in figure 8.

Figure 6: Balanced fertilizer trails from different Dzongkhags: Source (DoA, 2016)

The application of farm yard manure (FYM) is the most preferred fertilizer being applied in both treatment and control areas although quantity applied of 57.3kg/acre (in treatment) is much lower than in other parts of the country. This is likely as there are no sokshing in the south and livestock management is

Samtsi Sarpang Punakha WangdueRecommended 2298 1995 2718 2400Farmer practice 1552 1732 2260 2200

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

(Kg/

ac)

Picture7: Water source of irrigation

Figure 7: Percentage of households using fertilizer inputs

41

different. As opposed to the northern parts of the country, livestock tethering is common in the southern belt. Cattles are tied up in the fields at night and shifted from one spot to another thereby fertilizing the fields directly and saving labour cost. However, there is a time lag in the fertilizers being applied and the land preparations done. As such, it is likely that there might be loss of top soil containing the manures due to run-offs during heavy rain prominent in the South. Moreover, the application of the fertilizers through this process is not uniform across the field affecting overall fertility. The minimal application of the fertilizers including farm yard manure per acre of cultivated land affects proper soil fertility management resulting in low productivity.

Table 9: Average amount of fertilizers used per acre cultivated ‘treatment’ area ‘control’ area Average amount of chemical fertilizer used (kg/acre) 0 0 Average amount of plant protection chemical used (kg/acre)

0.82 0

Average amount of farmyard manure used (kg/acre) 57.3 18.4

The trends in usage of these inputs (see Table 10) as responded by communities reflect that soil fertility management is indeed poor. Plant protection chemicals being quite recent (post irrigation), the trends in usage was not applicable since it was recently adopted. Chemical fertilizer applications were virtually non-existent in the village. FYM is the most preferred fertilizers being used and 75% households in treatment and 33% households in the control area felt that the usage had increased over the years.

Table 10: Trends in input (fertilizer)utilization in the study areas Treatment Control % of respondents increased decreased same increased decreased same Chemical fertilizers NA NA NA NA NA NA PP chemicals NA NA NA NA NA NA FYM 75 12 12 33 25 41.7

While one would expect that the more livestock (cattle) a household owns FYM application would be higher. However, findings show that there is no distinct pattern of relationship between livestock owned and FYM application as households who owned more cattle applied much lesser FYM than those with fewer cattle.

ii. Social cohesion Water security is important for enhancing agriculture production and for community vitality. Where water is insufficient, there are reports of disputes over water sharing or management both at the community level as well as between communities of different areas sharing borders. Water-related disputes are widespread across the country mainly during paddy plantations and this affect the social cohesion in the community.

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Key informants in the treatment area mentioned that water-related disputes were not new to their village either. However, this has been drastically reduced with the availability of irrigation scheme. Apart from small quarrels during the cropping season, communities did not have any major conflicts over water. As their irrigation is rain-fed, farmers took turns to irrigate their field, when water from the source was less. Social cohesion according to a village elder was strong although they had a diverse community with resettlement of people from Zhemgang, Trongsa and eastern Bhutan. In the past, language was a barrier with the resettled people not being able to converse in the local language. Farmers also mentioned that there are times when they come together to help each other mainly during paddy cultivation and for maintaining their channel.

iii. Gender and enhanced time use The gendered differences in distribution of work were collected to determine the multiple roles of women and men in agricultural production with and without irrigation. As shown in figure 8, there is a distinct pattern of mostly men being engaged in guarding crops and in marketing activities (and this is true for both treatment and control areas) although agriculture farming and livestock rearing are mostly a shared responsibility. These findings indicate that activities pertaining to marketing and cash income generation are mostly confined to men. It was also reported during the FGDs that mostly men engaged in marketing of cardamom as it was a bulky produce and involved handling of more cash income. Since men were more conversant with the book keeping, women themselves encouraged the men to engage in marketing. Findings also indicate that women have a bigger role in treatment areas than in control areas. The possible explanations for this from personal observations in the field is the intensive cash crop cultivation in control area, which as reported by the communities were mostly carried out by men. The treatment area as explained earlier had a diversity of vegetables being cultivated mostly in kitchen gardens, which by virtue of being nearer to the households are most often taken up by women. Further, other domestic responsibilities such as household chores, attending to social events are mostly shouldered by women apart from sharing other responsibilities of farming with men indicating the multiple roles they play. This is an important consideration that needs to be made as household works largely account for the unpaid work that often gets overlooked. Findings suggest the need to take gender dimensions into consideration when planning for development projects such as irrigation.

Figure 8: Gender distribution of labour in RNR activities

0102030405060708090

Mostlymen

Mostlywomen

Both Mostlymen

Mostlywomen

Both

‘Treatment’ area ‘Control’ area

Farmersgroups/cooperativesAgriculture farming

Livestock

NWFP collection

Post-harvest &processingMarketing

Guarding crops

43

Figure 9: Gendered distribution of labour in unpaid work

Access to water for production in general is expected to enhance the time use particularly for women farmers. Women’s concerns over the multiple use of water include water for agriculture, for domestic tasks, health and sanitation while men’s water use priorities mainly revolve around agriculture or livestock (IFAD, 2012). Findings from the household survey do not show any distinct trends in the change in time use pattern in the treatment and control areas. However, key informants asserted that the availability of water enabled women in particular to maintain kitchen gardens that contribute to the household food requirement and the nutritional intake as well.

4. Conclusion and Recommendation The findings from the study suggest that where irrigation is available, there are definitely improvements in crop intensification and diversification resulting in enhanced food self-sufficiency and food security. However the continued dependence on rain for irrigation with limited water source protection confines the utilization of irrigation scheme to monsoon season only. Considering the potentials for agriculture development in the south and the high dependence on rain water for irrigation, efforts are therefore required to adopt alternative water management technologies to ensure continued supply of water. Further, while cardamom is a preferred crop for cash income generation, the encroachment of cardamom cultivation in the wetlands as evidenced in the study site is a policy concern.

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Mostlymen

Mostlywomen

Both Mostlymen

Mostlywomen

Both

‘Treatment’ area ‘Control’ area

Household chores

Attending tosocial/domestic events

Meetings and interviews

Picture 8: Cardamom plantations in wetlands

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References: DOA 2016, ‘Strategy to achieved 70% rice self-sufficiency by 2023’, draft document DOA 2016, ‘Draft Agriculture statistics, 2016’ DOA 2012, ‘National Irrigation policy (revised 2012)’, MoAF FAO 2001, ‘Human energy requirements’-report of a Joint FAO/WHO/UNU Expert Consultation. IFAD 2012, ‘Gender and Water: Securing water for improved rural livelihoods’, IFAD. MOAF 2013, ‘RNR sector eleventh five year plan (2013-2018)’, Thimphu NSB 2016, current estimated population accessed on December 2, 2016 from http://www.nsb.gov.bt/main/main.php

i

Impact assessment of irrigation scheme in Radhi

ChenchoDukpa, Chief Research Officer, Council for RNR Research of Bhutan,

Ministry of Agriculture and Forests, Thimphu.

ii

Acknowledgements The author would like to acknowledge the kind cooperation of the farmers of Radhi who patiently answered the various questions during the field work. The support and cooperation rendered by Radhi Gup in identifying the study villages is highly acknowledged. The RNR extension officer of Radhi gewog, Mr. Pema Wangchen, has helped actively in all aspects including enumeration of households, guiding the researchers around the villages and arranging logistics. I would also like to thank my colleagues from the ministry – Jigme Wangdi, Sherub, NidupDorji and AnjalSubha – in assisting with the household enumeration and also sharing valuable insights based on their observations which have helped shape the findings and conclusion of this study. Many thanks goes to Mr. MaterneMaeth, the International Consultant, who has taught us valuable skills in conducting policy impact studies during the workshop held in Phuentsholing before the field work began. After the field work, he has again assisted us by going through the draft report in detail and pointed out many areas requiring improvement. Finally, I would like to thank FAO for the funding support to this exercise.

iii

Executive Summary In order to assess the impact of irrigation on the socio-economic condition of farmers, a study was undertaken in March 2016 using a case study approach. Of the six case studies across different parts of Bhutan, this one was conducted in Radhi, Trashigang. Two communities were chosen, one as treatment area and the other as control area. By definition, the treatment area was an area consisting of a village or villages that is supplied with proper irrigation and control area was one that has similar agro-ecological condition but devoid of irrigation facility. Within Radhi gewog, the villages of Tokshimang and Pakaling were chosen as treatment area and the village of Tangthrang under Tongling Pam chiwog was chosen as control. Both the treatment and control sites have paddy fields, except that the treatment area is endowed with a proper irrigation facility consisting of pipes at some places and cement-structured canals at others since 2011, whereas control area has no such proper irrigation canal although farmers somehow manage to bring water to their paddy fields during the rainy season using simple traditional methods. To begin the comparisons beginning with food self-sufficiency ratio (SSR), we see a rather mixed result. While control area seem to fare better in terms of having more households with SSR above 1 and less households with SSR below 0.5, on the other hand treatment area fares better when compared at a landscape level. In terms of paddy production, treatment area fared better than the control area. The total cropped area under paddy as well as production was higher in the treatment area. Although farmers in both the treatment and control area reported that paddy production has increased in the last 5 years as a result of several factors, majority from the treatment area attributed the increase to improved irrigation infrastructure. In the control area, a number of farmers have left their paddy fields fallow due to lack of proper irrigation facility, lack of labor and thick bushes have claimed much of the landscape that were once rice terraces. Coming to household cash income, households in the treatment area earned about Nu 6000 more than those in control area. Does better irrigation facility play a role here? After proper analysis, the answer seems to be – no. It just happens that the treatment households received more remittance and also earned more from weaving activities both of which have no relationship with irrigation infrastructure. Diversification of income sources was another indicator used to assess the impact. Treatment households appear to fare slightly better in that there were few individuals who earn something from sale of fruits and vegetables but the small fraction is not worth deserving of attention. We can say income diversification level is similar.

iv

With regard to food shortage situation, three households from treatment area and one from control area reported having faced incidences of food shortage in the last one year, otherwise rest have no problem. The situation has not changed compared to past five years. Crop diversification wise, there was hardly any difference but control farmers were slightly better. Their farms grew slightly more number of different fruit trees, vegetable types and cereal types. Similarly there was no difference in cropping intensity, which is quite low compared to farms in neighbouring countries. The main reason is that in winter, farms are left fallow due to a number of reasons including low temperatures in winter, the need to rest the field and also for the humans. The use of chemical fertilizers, plant protection chemicals and farm yard manure has increased among some sections of the farmers in both the areas compared to five years ago, with treatment area seeing slightly more of such farmers. There were also no differences between the two sites in terms of gender distribution of work. One obvious difference across the two sites was in the area of social cohesion. In the treatment area, the provision of a reliable piped/canal water has greatly decreased the incidences of quarrels among farmers over water compared to the past. They said that worries over water being ‘stolen’ and diverted to others’ fields during transplantation are gone. Now they have peace of mind. In the control area, it was evident from the focus group discussions and key informant interviews that quarrels and fights over water during paddy transplantation are frequent. Another important difference was with regard to the timely manner of conducting farm operations. Farmers at higher elevations of the treatment area said that the piped/canal irrigation facility has enabled them to start paddy transplantation on time, usually in April, without having to wait for the rains which usually come much later (around June/July only). Being able to transplant early is crucial for the higher elevation farms because the rice crop needs enough time to ripe before autumn cold approaches. The timely completion of transplantation of paddy in the higher elevation farms is a good thing for both upper and lower farms in the treatment area because the upper farms can earn wages from hiring labour to the lower farms during paddy transplantation in the lower farms which happens usually much later, say around May/June because the rice crop grows fast due to warm temperature and is ripe for harvest by October. In a nutshell, we can conclude that improved irrigation facility has increased rice production, enhanced social cohesion, enabled timely paddy transplantation and also eased labour exchange during paddy transplantation time.

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1. Introduction and background This irrigation impact assessment was carried out in Radhi Gewog, Trashigang Dzongkhag, located in eastern Bhutan (see Fig 1). Within the gewog, the Chiwogs of Tokshimang and Pakaling were chosen as treatment area and Tongling Pam chiwog as control area.

Figure 1: Map of Bhutan showing Trashigang Dzongkhag (shaded), Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Trashigang_Bhutan_location_map.png

Radhi has a warm sub-tropical climatic condition and its surrounding vegetation is described as cool broadleaved forest. The altitudinal range is quite impressive with lowland villages at 1080 masl and the upper most ones as high as 3220 masl (RNR EC, 2016). The villages of Radhi lie scattered across a gentle-steep slope and the landscape is dominated by paddy fields dotted with trees and traditional Bhutanese houses (Fig 2).

Figure 2: Satelite photo of Radhi Gewog showing the location of the study areas. Source: Google Earth.

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a. Economic context Radhi is often referred to as the ‘rice bowl of the east’ due to its good production of rice. Rice yields of Radhi farms are among the highest in Bhutan. According to the crop cut survey done by extension officers in 2014, rice yield of Radhi was 1.8 tons/acre while the national average was 1.5 tons/acre (DoA, 20141). Radhi has a total of 510 acres of cultivated paddy land (RNR EC, 2015). Other agricultural commodities of importance are maize, potato, vegetables, fruits and livestock products such as milk and eggs. Radhi is also known for its production of silk-made weaving products. Although not yet realized, there is potential for tourism as well due to the gewog being the main transit route to the mystical places of Merak and Sakten. Radhi’s economy is slowly transforming itself from subsistence to market economy. This is evident from the presence of several self-help groups for efficient production and marketing purpose. Some of these groups are: Khudumpang rice group, Chuthawong orchard group, Chema orchard group, Drungon vegetable group, Langten vegetable group, Jonla Dairy group, Tongling dairy group, Langten dairy group and Drungon poultry group. Self-help groups are not limited to agricultural production and marketing only but also formed to manage and access surrounding forest resources. Some of these groups are : Urphu Community Forestry Group, Sharmidung Community Forestry Group, Chema Private Forestry Group and Drungon Private Forestry Group. Apart from the above groups which are almost exclusively facilitated by government agencies, there are also a few groups which are totally formed through local initiatives. There is a religious group which looks after the promotion and sustaining of local festivals and customs. The age-old system of water-use management still exists, alongside the more recently formed water user groups (WUGs). These WUGs are: Jonla Pam WUG, ChortenKangduma WUG and Phagpari WUG.

b. Administrative context For administrative purpose, Bhutan is divided into twenty Dzongkhags (or districts). Each Dzongkhag is further divided into Gewogs (or sub-districts) and a Gewog is further divided into Chiwogs. A chiwog is therefore the smallest administrative domain. A chiwog may be composed of one or several villages. Each chiwog has one Tshogpa who is an elected person on a 5-year term with the mandate to assist the Gewog Gup (Gewog administrator) in looking after the administrative affairs.

1 Agriculture Statistics, 2014. Department of Agriculture, MoAF, Thimphu.

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Radhi is one of the 15 Gewogs under Trashigang Dzongkhag. Radhi has five chiwogs. The total population of Radhi is 5806 as of 2015 (RNR EC, 20162).

c. History of the irrigation scheme The main source of irrigation water for Radhi since times immemorial has been a stream called Chudiri that flows on the east side of Radhi and drains into Gamri river. Farmers used traditional open canal to tap water from the stream and divert to their fields. These canals were not without problems. They would often get damaged at several points or sometimes got washed away during heavy monsoon. Then in 1988, Radhi got a proper modern irrigation scheme funded by an IFAD project. However within just one year of its commissioning, the scheme was rendered useless due to heavy monsoon that washed away the canal at several points. Farmers had to resort back to their traditional canals and it was to be that way for many years to come. Finally in 2011, Radhi’s irrigation situation got a major facelift with government support in the form of provision of pipes (Fig 3) and other materials required to channel water reliably from the stream to Radhi. In particular, the scheme benefited the chiwogs of Tokshimang, Pakaling, Chema, Kadam and Khatey. During its construction, the farmers coordinated amongst themselves for smooth implementation of the work, contributed labour during the pipe-laying works and even today are engaged in its maintenance. In each chiwog, they have a water user association composed of 4-5 people who looks after the needs of the irrigation scheme.

Figure 3. Irrigation pipe from Chudiri to Tokshimang chiwog. The smaller pipes are for drinking water.

2 RNR Extension Centre, Radhi gewog, 2015.

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2. Methodology The impact of irrigation scheme was measured primarily by comparing changes that have occurred for some pre-selected indicators over a period of time starting from the year of the scheme’s establishment (or a scheme’s major renovation) to the time of study in the treatment and control group of households. The changes are defined broadly by asking the respondents whether a particular indicator has increased, decreased or remained same since the baseline year. The pre-selected indicators are: food self-sufficiency ratio, cash income, crop diversification, crop intensification, environmental impact, input utilisation and gender distribution of work. Field work started in the first week of April 2016 and was completed by 3rd week of April 2016. A total of 51 and 22 households from treatment and control area respectively were interviewed to collect information at household level. Selection of households for interview did not follow any probability sampling approach – every household residing in the identified study area were interviewed except the few empty ones at the time of our visit. Additional respondents participated in Focus Group Discussion (Fig 4) and Key Informant interview.

Figure 4. Focus Group Discussion at Pakaling chiwog.

Although treatment and control villages were identified prior to travel to Radhi based on vague information provided by Engineering Division, DoA, however, upon reaching Radhi, it became clear from conversation with the Gup of Radhi that those identified villages did not fit the criteria for the study. Therefore, close consultation with the Gup and extension agent was done to identify a proper ‘treatment’ and ‘control’ areas. Consequently, it was decided that the villages falling under Tokshimang and Pakaling chiwogs were to be ‘treatment’ and villages under Tongling Pam as ‘control’.

49

As mentioned earlier, Tokshimang and Pakaling (hereby referred to as treatment area) benefitted from the Chudiri stream irrigation scheme launched in 2011, have had no problem so far and therefore found to be suitable candidate as ‘treatment area’. The reason why Tongling Pam was chosen as ‘control’ was that although it got a piped irrigation scheme from another stream called Chongdiri it was washed away by heavy monsoon rain about 5 years ago. The villagers had since then been depending on age-old ways of bringing water to their fields once the rainy season begins. Strictly speaking, since water is made available for paddy cultivation by any means, these villages of Tongling Pam would not fit the concept of a proper ‘control’ area, nonetheless, we have chosen to treat it as control from the point of having no proper irrigation canal/pipes as such. Other important differences to be noted include the terrain and altitude between the sites. Pakaling/Tokshimang lie on a slightly gentle slope whereas Tongling Pam has slightly steep slope, due to which terracing is more difficult and dryland crops like maize and fruits are quite prominent. Altitude wise, our control area lies at a lower altitude than the treatment area. One can easily feel the difference in temperature while going from treatment to the control area. In terms of farm road facility, both the areas are connected with roads, although our control area got it much earlier – in 1990s – than the treatment area which was connected to the main Radhi-Phongme road only in 2006. With regard to method of data collection in the field, the first day after arriving was devoted to understanding the study sites from a holistic view point. This included casual walking through the villages, observing the socio-economic conditions of the inhabitants, talking with farmers to understand the kind of opportunities and challenges, the kinds of crops sown or livestock kept, topography of the land, location of the water sources and so on. From day two onwards, face-to-face interview was done using Samsung Android Tablets which contained an application called CSEntry developed by US Census Bureau. The data entry application was designed using CSPro 6.2. Every evening after the day’s enumeration, the survey team leader copied the data folder from the other team members/enumerators, concatenated the files, exported to Stata 12 and quickly checked for data accuracy or inconsistency. This allowed the researchers to fix the data problem, if any, while still in the field. Once the enumeration in both areas was completed, the final concatenated data was synchronised with Dropbox for extra backup. This also allowed immediate access to the data by co-researchers back in Thimphu. The household interview was complimented with Focus Group Discussion (FGD) and Key Informant interview in each site. Care was taken to ensure that FGDs represented equal gender and age groups.

50

Additional information was collected from the RNR Extension Office of Radhi gewog. These included maps, posters showing demographic and organisational information at the gewog level. Data processing, analysis and report drafting was done from May 2016 onwards whenever time permitted. Data was processed using CSPro 6.2 and analysed in Stata 12. Readers are cautioned with regard to generalising the study’s findings at national level. It is just a case study of a few villages within a gewog with a very small sample size. The sample was also not drawn using probability sampling approaches but based on convenience and hence the statistics produced are not accompanied with standard errors or confidence intervals. The primary goal of the exercise was on practicing policy analysis skills and not on pure research per se. 3. Findings and discussions

a. Most important changes perceived Table 1 shows most important perceived changes by the local population. For those in treatment area, the farm road and the irrigation scheme came to their minds prominently when asked about the most important changes in recent times. Table 1: Most important perceived changes by local population

‘treatment’ area ‘control’ area 1. Farm road The burden of

carrying loads on back is over.

2. Irrigation scheme After the 2011 irrigation scheme, our rice yields have been stable; in the past it used to be very variable.

The flash flood in 2012 was a disaster and led to many wetland fallowing.

The same thoughts were echoed by the key informants. The treatment area key informants mentioned that in the past, farmers used to quarrel over water and even physical fights were common as a result of the lack of irrigation scheme. Now they said that conflicts over water are rare and social cohesion has greatly improved. Another highlight of the irrigation scheme is that those farmers situated in upper Radhi, having comfortably taken care of the transplantation in their own fields, can now earn some extra wages by working on the farms of lower Radhi where transplantation usually takes place slightly later. In the past this opportunity was not there because most of the upper farmers would be engaged in guarding the little water from being diverted to others’ fields. Therefore both upper and lower communities are in a win-win situation.

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Benefits of an intervention scheme are often not uniform. One can expect to find that there are also some losers, i.e. those who are adversely affected from a scheme. In the case of Radhi, it seems everybody (in the treatment area) is a gainer. No one came forward with a complaint such as loss of land or seepage or extra burden in the form of shared labour for maintenance. This is supported by the household data as well as researchers’ own observations during the transect walk and while moving around the villages.

b. Food self-sufficiency Table 2 shows percentage of households falling under various categories of food self-sufficiency ratio (SSR) for cereals. Household food self-sufficiency ratio is calculated as a ratio of total production of cereals to sum of individual cereal requirement for each family member. Table 2: Percentage of households under various categories of food self-sufficiency ratio for cereals

In ‘treatment’ area

In ‘control’ area

Percentage of households with Food SSR for cereals

More than 1 67 91 Between 0.75 and 1

0 0

Between 0.5 and 0.75

2 4.5

Less than 0.5 31 4.5 Median of food self-sufficiency ratio for cereals for all households interviewed

1.7 2.7

The figures in the Table xx were arrived at after considering some simple assumptions. For instance, we calculated that on average cereals (e.g. rice, maize, wheat etc) contain 3858 kcal per kg; although daily requirement of energy for humans depend on age, sex, gender and activity level of the person, a blanket figure of 2200 kcal per person per day as average requirement was assumed (FAO, 20013). In cereal terms, a daily requirement of 570 gm per person per day was assumed. According to Table xx, it shows that the control area has about 20% more farmers having SSR above 1. The treatment area also had 31% farmers with SSR below 0.5. The median SSR for all households interviewed is quite high for both areas, with control area having slightly higher figure. Based on this snapshot figures, control area fares better. Another way to compare SSR would be to consider each study site as a whole and calculate the SSR as shown in Table 3. With this approach, treatment area has about 2.3 times more SSR than control area.

3http://www.fao.org/3/a-y5686e.pdf

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Table 3: Comparison of food self-sufficiency ratio by considering each study site as a whole (landscape level)

Treatment Control Total cereal produced (kg) 242004 42771 Total population 155 64 Daily requirement of cereals per person (kg) 0.57 0.57 Annual requirement (kg) 155*0.57*365=32247 64*0.57*365=13315 SSR (total cereal prod/annual req.) 7.5 3.2

c. Crop production In order to see if irrigation scheme has made an impact on crop production, farmers were asked for each crop whether its production has increased, decreased or remained same compared to 5 years ago. Although it was asked and recorded for many types of cereals, vegetables and fruit crops, here we will focus only on paddy as this crop is totally irrigation dependant. First let us see the kind of area sown, production and yields obtained in the 2015 cropping season (Table 4). Both cropped area and production of paddy were higher for treatment area. However, the computed yields (production/cropped area) were higher in the control area. Perhaps the warmer temperature as mentioned earlier and also more use of chemical fertilizers and plant protection chemicals by control farmers, as seen in a later section, may be playing a role. Table 4: Comparison of paddy cropped area, median production and yield

Treatment Control Mean cropped area (acres) 0.89 0.68 Median production* (kg) 1573 1170 Median yield** (kg/acre) 1866 2080 *There were lot of outliers, so median figure is reported; **computed as a ratio of production over cropped area and then the median is reported due to many outliers in production. In order to see if production has been like this even before the baseline, we looked at the trend of production as reported by the respondents. From Table 5, it suggests that the scenario was largely different then. Table 5: Trend in production of paddy since year 2011 (% respondents).

Treatment Control Increase Decrease Same Increase Decrease Same Paddy 34 5 60 40 35 25

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Table 6: Reasons for increase in paddy production (% of total cited reasons).

Treatment Control Road access 11 0 Market access 5 0 Farm mechanisation 22 50 Increased manpower 16 50 Improved irrigation 44 0

Table 7: Reasons for decrease in paddy production (% of total cited reasons).

Treatment Control Irrigation problem 0 15 Reduced manpower 0 54 Land availability/lack of land*

33 23

Wildlife problem 66 7 *lack of land in the control area was associated with cultivated land forced to be left fallow due to difficulty in bringing water to the land.

From the above tables 6 and 7, we can say that irrigation scheme has had an impact. Although in both the study sites, the percent saying production has increased is about the same (about 6% more in control area though) the reasons for the increase appears to be mainly due to improved irrigation for treatment area while in control area no one attributed it to the same. From the reasons given for decrease, 15% in control area attributed it to irrigation problem. There were also 23% in control area attributing to land availability/ lack of land – from KII (conversation with Mr. Dawa as seen in Fig 5) it was learnt that about 11-13 households in the control area have left their wetlands fallow since the irrigation pipes were washed away.

Figure 5: Mr. Dawa from Tangthrang village showing the fallow wetlands overgrown with bushes.

d. Cash income Respondents were asked how much cash income they earned over the last 12 months from various sources such as sale of cereals, vegetables, fruits and so on. Income from the various sources were then added up to give total cash income. Table 8 shows the mean cash income of households in the two study sites. On average, a household in treatment area earned about Nu 6000 more than that of a control area.

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Table 8: Mean income of household.

Mean Standard deviation Treatment 28413 29746 Control 22153 30408

Figure 6: Boxplot showing cash income of households.

Total cash income of a household does not provide the entire picture. In order to gain a deeper understanding we look at the sources of household income and how this differs across the two study sites (Table 9). If we look at the number or proportion of households by income source, this throws up some interesting differences. Firstly, a majority of the households in control area earn cash income from sale of livestock products while there are only a handful from treatment area earning from livestock. Although mean number of cattle – both improved and local – and poultry reared was slightly higher for treatment households, still the mean income earned from livestock sources was higher for control households. This is because the control area has gone more market-oriented than treatment area due to the proximity to Rangjung urban area. Secondly, 31% of households in treatment area have income from remittances while in the control area it is only 18%. The mean income from remittances is also about 6 times higher for treatment area than control and this contributes a lot to the overall mean income. This also suggests that there are more people from treatment area than control area who have migrated elsewhere. Unfortunately, the researchers had not explored whether the migration has any link to the irrigation scheme.

050

,000

1000

0015

0000

Inco

me

(Nu)

Treatment Control

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Thirdly, the major differences lie in cash income from crop products (cereal grains). There are about twice as much households in control area than treatment area who earn from this source. Control area also has about twice as many households earning from vegetables although the actual number of households is very small. With regard to fruit crops and cash crops, there are some households in treatment area who earn a few thousands while there are literally none in control area. Of course it must be noted that households in control area also have fruit trees but the trees are still young and yet to reap income. The study sites share similarity in terms of percentage households earning substantial income from off-farm activities and not earning anything from non-wood forest products. Although the percentage households engaged in off-farm activities are about the same, the mean income figure is nearly twice for treatment area, contributing a lot to increasing the overall household income. Weaving burey clothes is one of the most important off-farm activities of Radhi women and we learned from FGD and KII that women in Pakaling and Tokshimang chiwogs are traditionally very good at that while those of our control area are not so. Table 9: Mean and standard deviation of household income from various sources.

In ‘treatment’ area In ‘control’ area Mean s.d Mean s.d Crop products (cereal grains)

12972 13684 15420 13205

Vegetables (Chilli, asparagus, cauliflowers, carrot, peas, beans)

3833

1040 1166 577

Fruit crops (apple, orange)

3050

3967 4000

Cash crops 4300 3383 0 Livestock products (dairy, meat, eggs and fish)

1675

2238 5306 .6

Remittances 25000 19193 4500 4041

Other off-farm activities (business, weaving, pottering, contract works etc.)

43100

31557 25342 25479

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e. Changes in cash income Table 10 shows proportion of respondents reporting whether their income from the various sources have increased, decreased or remained same compared to year 2011. Table 10: Trend of cash income since the irrigation scheme was established (in %).

In ‘treatment’ area In ‘control’ area Increase Decrease Same Increase Decrease Same

Crop products (cereal grains)

45 0 54 50 10 40

Vegetables (Chilli, asparagus, cauliflowers, carrot, peas, beans)

100 0 0 0 0 100

Fruit crops (apple, orange)

50 25 25 100 0 0

Potatoes/cash crop 80 0 20 na na na Livestock products (dairy, meat, eggs and fish)

50 0 50 40 20 40

Remittances 56 6 37 25 0 75

Other off-farm activities (business, weaving, pottering, contract works etc.)

25 30 45 44 0 55

For cereal crops, proportion of farmers reporting that income has increased is slightly more in control area but there was also 10% of control area reporting a decreasing trend. Therefore, with regard to cereal crops it seems the irrigation scheme had no impact. For vegetable income, 100% of treatment area felt that it has increased whereas 100% in control area felt it was same. There appears to be clear impact here as a result of irrigation scheme. However, the actual number of respondents is too low to be reliable. For income trend from fruits, control area appears to be a clear winner but again note the single person who said that. Percentage figure alone can be misleading and conclusions need to be drawn in conjunction with n. Looking at the trend for cash crop (potato), treatment area has done better than control area which did not even have a single farmer earning from cash crop in the first place. For livestock related income, the treatment area farmers seemed to fare slightly better and there was even a 10% of control area respondents who felt there was a decrease. Taking into account that income from livestock is negligible, we should not pay much attention to this trend.

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Remittance flow has increased in both cases, although there were about twice in treatment area who felt the increase than control area. If we assume that remittance receiving is associated with low income and dependence on others, then control area again fares better here. Lastly, with regard to off-farm income, the trend is again much better for control area. Based on just trend/change in income over the last 5 years, it suggests that there was no impact of irrigation scheme. Perhaps, 5 years is too short to yield any notable impact. On top of that, we must note other important factors at play. Firstly, when the rainy season starts, farmers in the control area have always managed to bring water somehow to the fields. In the treatment area, the presence of an irrigation scheme makes life a lot easier, but it necessarily did not translate into increased income. Secondly, another factor which played an important role is the farm road that came to the control area many years earlier than in the treatment area. It seems the farmers in control area are accustomed to selling farm produce more since the coming of the road and those in treatment area are just catching up only now. Informal dialogue with local population revealed that income can be increased further through facilitation of marketing, group formation, access to credit and of course assured irrigation.

Diversification of income source Table 11 shows share of income from different sources. Having diverse source of income is generally seen as being resilient and ensures safety net against shocks. On average we see that a household in treatment area has slightly more sources of income than a household in control in the form of fruits and cash crop, however, the magnitude is negligible. The fact that a household in control area has solid share from cereal crops and livestock gives them a huge advantage as these are within a farmer’s control. The share from remittance is second largest source for treatment, which is a cause for concern as this source can be unstable.

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Table 11: Share of income from different sources.

Sources of agricultural income ‘treatment’ area ‘control’ area Share of agricultural income coming from cereals (%) 12 32 Share of agricultural income coming from vegetables (%)

1.3 1

Share of agricultural income coming from fruits (%) 1.2 0 Share of agricultural income coming from livestock (%) 1.4 50 Share of agricultural income coming from cash crop (%)

3 0

Share of income from remittance (%) 33 3 Share of income from off-farm (%) 48 24

f. Food and nutrition security Table 12 compares food shortage situation before irrigation and now by study group. Food shortage in this context is defined as inability of a household to provide three meals a day on their own and having to borrow or beg food during that time. If a household copped the shortage by buying food, it was not considered as food shortage. Except 3 households in treatment area and one household in control area, food shortage was not a concern for the farmers at large in both the study sites. This was consistent from our own field observations and dialogue with people. We did not come across any destitute family. After all, Radhi is popularly known as ‘rice bowl of the east’. Table 12: Food security situation and coping mechanisms. (number in parenthesis show the absolute number of households).

Treatment Control before now before now

Percentage of households experiencing food shortages

5.8% (3) 5.8% (3) 4.5% (1) 4.5% (1)

Duration of the food shortage

- Less than 1 month shortage

0 0 0 0

- 1 to 3 months shortage 5.8%(3) 5.8%(3) 4.5%(1) 4.5%(1) - 3 to 6 months shortage 0 0 0 0 - more than 6 months shortage

0 0 0 0

Coping mechanism

- Purchase

- Borrow All 3 hhs One hh

- Barter - Labour exchange - Other

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g. Crop diversification Table 13 shows the percent cropped area by various crop types and number of different crops present on an average farm in the study sites. Contrary to expected outcome, there was no difference in share of cereal cropped area. One would expect that because of irrigation scheme, there would be more area sown to cereals in the treatment area. For fruit crops control area was better. Earlier we saw that farmers in control area did not earn anything from fruits – this was because the fruit trees are still young.

Table 13: Percentage of cropped area under different crops and number of different crops grown.

Percentage of area cropped ‘treatment’ area

‘control’ area

Percentage of area cropped

- under cereals 74 74 - under vegetables 10 2 - fruit crops (tree numbers) 11 22 -under cash crops (cardamom and potato)

5 2

Number of different crops present on the farm

- cereals

1.47 1.86

- vegetables

0.94 1.59

- Fruit crops

1.39 2.59

-Cash crops 0.31 0.54

h. Crop intensification Cropping intensity is calculated as a ratio of total cropped area to total cultivated area. For example if a farmer has one acre land on which he sows 1 acre potato in January, harvests it in June and again sows and harvests 1 acre potato from July to December on the same plot of land, then cropping intensity is 2/1=2. Table 14: Comparison of cropping intensity.

Percentage of area cropped ‘treatment’ area ‘control’ area Cropping intensity 1.31 1.51 % of cultivated area under double cropping

0 0

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Table 14 shows that cropping intensity is slightly higher for control area than treatment area. This suggests that from the objective of increasing cropping intensity, the irrigation scheme has not achieved any impact. The reasons are obvious. Firstly, the farmers in the treatment area told us that the size of the stream from which the irrigation water is drawn becomes very small in winter and therefore the canals/pipes are virtually empty in winter. Secondly, even if the stream size was big enough in winter, the traditional practice of keeping lands fallow in winter would not have allowed farmers to tap the stream.

i. Capacity development As mentioned earlier, there are currently three water user groups (WUGs) in the whole of Radhi. These are: Jonla Pam WUG, ChortenKangduma WUG and Phagpari WUG. These groups are represented by members from all the 5 chiwogs. With regard to adopting irrigation technologies other than accessing the open canal/hume pipe irrigation scheme, there were none of the households in either of the study sites having done so as shown in Table 15. Perhaps, there is no incentive to do so because of the tradition of leaving lands fallow during the dry season, a time for taking rest or undertake pilgrimage to religious places in India. Table 15: Percentage of households adopting certain water management techniques.

Water management technologies % households who adopted

Sprinkler irrigation 0 Drip irrigation 0 Water harvesting techniques 0

j. Improved water management In order to see what is the share of cropped land brought under irrigation, respondents were asked how much of their land is irrigated in summer and how much during winter. In our case, data on this aspect is found to be not very useful due to many cases having weird figures, perhaps due to miscommunication between enumerators and respondents. Tabulation of the data was therefore decided not to be conducted. The lesson to be learned here is that enumerators need to be briefed very well on each item of the questionnaire in order not to render data useless. However, from our field observations and FGDs, it was clear that farmers in both study sites, particularly in the treatment area, are able to irrigate their land entirely in summer whereas in winter in both the areas, it is zero percent under irrigation. There is simply not enough water from the source itself in winter. Farmers also said that even if there was enough water in winter for irrigation, winter cropping is unlikely as traditionally it has been like this, i.e., fields are kept fallow in winter and livestock roam freely on them.

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k. Environmental impact

No environmental impacts like landslides or other damages were reported by the farmers in the treatment area due to the irrigation scheme in question. However, it is generally believed by experts that Radhi’s vulnerability to landslides and erosion is to some extent made worse by the wetland farming system (RNR RC Khangma, 20004).

l. Input utilisation

It is expected that farmers are more likely to increase the use of agricultural inputs when their farms are endowed with irrigation facilities. Irrigation not only increases production per unit area, but also diversity of crops grown and therefore demand of inputs are likely to rise. Therefore this study compared the usage of agricultural inputs across the two sites (Table 16). If we look just at the snap-shot of the present situation with regard to proportion of farmers who are using various agricultural inputs such as chemical fertilizers, plant protection chemical and farmyard manure, we see that control area has more farmers who use chemical fertilizers and plant protection chemicals, with farmyard manure being slightly more in the treatment area. Table 16: Percentage of respondents applying various agricultural inputs.

Chemical fertilizers Plant Protection Chemicals Farmyard manure yes no yes no yes no Treatment 86 14 51 49 92 8 Control 100 0 91 9 82 18 With regard to the rate of application of chemical fertilizer and plant protection chemicals, it is in general quite low compared to rates applied elsewhere, for example in western Bhutan (Table 17). However comparing between treatment and control, it is slightly more in control area for chemical fertilizer and vice versa for plant protection chemicals. However,FYM application rates are about 3 times more in treatment area, partly because they also kept slightly more cattle.

Table 17: Rate of application of various agricultural inputs.

Average amount used per acre Treatment

Control

Chemical fertilizer 51 66 Plant protection chemical 9 5 Farmyard manure 162 54

4 RNR Research Centre-Khangma, 2000. Land degradation issues: a diagnostics study of Radhi gewog.

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Because we are measuring impact of irrigation scheme, we are more interested in the change of the indicators over time than the snap-shot figures. If increase in use of agriculture inputs such as chemical fertilizers, plant protection chemicals and farmyard manure may be considered as positive impact of irrigation, then it appears that treatment area farmers have made more progress than those of control area as shown in Table 18.

Table 18: Percentage respondents reporting if various input use has increased, decreased or remained same.

Treatment Control increased decreased same increased decreased same Chemical fertilizers

25 9 66 9 14 77

PP chemicals

15 4 81 5 10 85

FYM 28 6 66 11 16 72

m. Social cohesion From the FGD and KII, it was quite apparent that improvements in social cohesion has been better in the treatment area than control area. In the past when the proper irrigation scheme was not in place (in the treatment area), there used to be frequent quarrels among the farmers over water. Sometimes it would go physical. Compared to past, there is now hardly any quarrels or fightings over water, according to the people interviewed. However, in the control area the quarrels over water are quite common still, according to the key informants. Two men were even known to have fought using knives in one instance over water. Even women were frequently involved in these quarrels, according to the key informants. However, it is also possible that the key informants were exaggerating the issue with the hope that the researchers would highlight their water problem at higher levels.

n. Enhanced time use

In order to assess if there were any changes with regard to gender distribution of work as a result of irrigation intervention, respondents were asked which gender in the household mostly does a particular activity currently and whether the scenario has changed over the last 5 years. As Table 19 shows, the findings in general are more or less consistent with what is expected of a typical Bhutanese family. Most works are done by both men and women, although there are some works which are traditionally more associated with a particular gender, for example, household chores which are mostly done by women. Some stark differences between the study sites may be noted though, for example, with regard to marketing of farm produce and for meetings and surveys.

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Table 19: Difference of distribution of activities among genders in treatment and control areas.

Activities ‘treatment’ area ‘control’ area Mostl

y men Mostly women

Both Mostly men

Mostly women

Both

Household chores (cleaning, cooking, washing, tending to children, elderly etc.)

12 76 12 0 91 9

Water User Groups, Road User Groups, Community Forestry, FGs, & Coops

51 14 35 32 23 45

Agriculture farming 17 10 72 14 14 73 Livestock 21 39 39 23 50 27 NWFP collection 10 4 86 0 0 100 Post-harvest & processing 16 25 59 0 45 54 Marketing 23 15 60 4 45 50 Guarding crops from wildlife 60 3 35 40 9 50 Attending annual Social/domestic events

5 7 86 13 13 72

Meetings and survey interviews (geog, dzongkhag, Ministries)

37 11 50 18 22 59

Again, the important question is – has irrigation scheme made any difference to the gender distribution of work? To answer this question, farmers were asked whether distribution of work has changed over the last 5 or 6 years. Almost 100% of the respondents in both study sites were of the opinion that it has remained the same. In other words, we can say there is no impact of irrigation in terms of gender distribution of work. This is not surprising though, as we are talking of something that is deeply cultural ingrained and it cannot be expected to change in a matter of 5 or 6 years just because of improved access to irrigation water. 4. Conclusion For most indicators like food security, crop diversification, cropping intensity, input use and gender aspects, we do not see any significant differences between the treatment and control area. Perhaps the 5 years is too short to yield any significant differences in those aspects. However, increase in rice production due to improved irrigation facility in the treatment area and the fallowing of rice terraces in the control area was clearly demonstrated. The treatment area community also enjoyed better social cohesion, timely paddy transplantation and better labour exchange mechanism during transplantation as a direct result of the improved irrigation facility.

i

A Case study on the impact of Irrigation Policy

Lachu-Yuwa irrigation scheme, Bejna Gewog, Wangduephodrang

Mr. Jigme Wangdi Program Director RNR-RDC, Yusipang Mr. Sonam Pelgen Asst. Planning Officer Policy and Planning Division

ii

Acknowledgement We would like to express our deepest happiness and appreciation for the unwavering support we received from the staffs from various agencies. We would like to thank Mr. Domang, Assistant District Agriculture Officer, Wangduephodrang Dzongkhag Administration, Mr. Riki Wangchuk, Agriculture Extension Officer, Bjena Gewog and Mr. Gyembo Dorji, Agriculture Extension Officer, Nyisho Gewog for their continuous support and vauable inputs to this report. We also would like to thank Gups and Mangmis of Bjena and Nyisho Gewog and Tshogpas of Thaemakha and Gangju Chiwog for their warm hospitality and support. Finally, we thank people of two chiwogs for sparing their valuable time for this survey.

iii

Executive Summary This irrigation policy impact case study was carried out in Thaemakha village as a treatment area in Bjena Gewog and Gangju village in Nyisho Gewog as a control area both located under Wangduephodrang Dzongkhag. Thaemakha village located opposite to Wangdue-Trongsa highway on the way towards Trongsa has about 25 households with agricultural activities as the primary occupation. Majority of the farm land is wetland where people predominantly grow paddy. In addition, households also grow potato, wheat and few varieties of vegetables. In recent years, with the construction of six kilometer farm road and mjor renovation of irrigation channel, farmers have increasingly started to grow potato as the main cash crop while wheat has tend to lost its importance. Wheat is now primarily grown as a fodder for cattle. Apart from these crops farmers also rear cattle. Compared to the Thaemakha, Ganju village is socio-economically a poor village with acute drinking and irrigation water shortage located in Nyisho Gewog located opposite to Kazhi and Phangyul gewog. Farmers primarily grow wheat and potato. In the absence of irrigation water, farmers purchase rice from the nearest market while some farmers also practice share cropping in other’s land. Most of the male household members work as wage labour in contract works. The study to analyse the impact of irrigation was conducted through household enumeration, focus group discussion and key informant interviews. Wherever necessary, the team also undertook field observation for authentication and validation. Data were entered using tablet which enable realtime data entry and analyes using SPSS and CS Pro. A comparative study showed a wide varations with regard to standard of living between the two communities. There was a major boost in the income generation from the sale of agricultural products in the treatment area. Income from sale of agricultural products comprised major share in the treatment area while income from off-farm activities like wage work constituted major share to the total income in the control area. More than 92 percent of the households reported of increase in income from off-farm activities in the recent years in the control area. All households in the treatment reported of income from off-farm remaining same. There were also report of abandoned settlement in the control area due to water shortage which was not reported in the treatment area. The other visible impact of irrigation was with regard to the food self-sufficiency ratio. The food suffiency ratio has been found to be comparatively high in the treatment area with 96.1 percent of households reporting food production more than sufficient. On the other hand, none of the households in control area reported of complete food self sufficient. In fact, about 60 percent of the households in the control area reported food sefl sufficiency of less than point five.

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The quantity of chemical fertilisers used has also been found to be more in the control and treatment area. An average of 26.38 kilograms per acre was used by households in the control area compared to 5.38 kilogram per kg in the treatment area. About 33 percent of the households in control area reported of increase trend chemical fertilisation compared to 30 percent reporting increased used of chemical fertilisers in the treamtment area

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1. Introduction and background

a. Geographical context of the irrigation scheme analysed

Wangduephodrang Dzongkhag is the second largest Dzongkhag in the country. Administratively it is divided into fifteen Gewogs.Rice farming is the predominant agricultural activity in the valley bottoms while livestock rearing and potato cultivation are the important income generation activities in the higher altitude areas. Paddy fields are mostly situated along the Dangchhu and Punatsangchhu valleys. Citrus and ginger production as cash crop are gaining momentum in some Gewogs while the southern part of the Dzongkhag has potentials to produce sub-tropical horticulture crops like, mangoes, pineapples, guavas etc. however, the priority for the government and the Dzongkhag in the Eleventh Plan is the reconstruction of the historic 374 years old Wangduephodrang Dzong, which was destroyed by fire on 24th June 2012. Bjena gewog is spread over an area of 44057.93 acres situated between 1350 and 3400 meters above sea level, on the left bank of Dangchhu. The 319 households within the 5 villageshas a total population of 2470. The gewog has 55 kilometers of road network connected to all chiwogs. The construction of 6 kilometer feeder road in 2009 connects Themakha chiwog withthe letaral highway at Tikizampa. All villages are electrified with 100% coverage of mobile network. The Gewog has 36 numbers of irrigaton schemes with total canal lengthof 24 kilometers. The two Primary schools in the Gewog has 225 students with 13 teachers.

Lachu yuwa, located in Themakha chiwog is selected as the sample treatment. The chiwog also has another irrigation canal which provides irrigation water to the lower portion of the

Themakha chiog

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chiwog. The Themakha chiwog is connected to the gewog centre by a 61 kilometer feeder road. All households have access to electricity and the cell phone connectivity. Nyisho gewog covers an area of 28543.14 acres located between 1880 and 1986 meters above sea level, on the right bank of Dangchhu. The gewog has 341 households with 6 chiwogs. The total population of the 13 villages of the gewog is 2651. The total length of farm road is 40.8 kilometers which connects all the 6 chiwogs. All villages are electrified with 100% coverage of mobile network. The Gewog has 6 irrigaton schemes with total canal length of 35 kilometers. The Samtegang Middle Secondary School has the total strength of 738 students with 42 teachers.

Control area: Gangju

Treatment area: Thaemakha

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The Gangju chiwog, in general, encounters acute water shortage through out the year. The problem with Gangju chiwog is the inavailability of a reliable perennial water sources in the proximity of study area.The nearest perennial water source is about 15 kilometers away as informed by the locals. The advantage is that the source is within the Nyisho gewog and therefore conflict over resource sharing is not foreseen, unlike the case of Kazhi and Phangyul. The household residing in the upper part of the village, do not even have access to drinking water at the time of survey. Since the drying up of the stream in the locality in 2013, paddy cultivation has stopped and the dryland farming has reduced drastically. The two gewogs are located on either side of the Dangchu watershed almost facing each other. Both fall within the similar agro-ecological zone and therefore experiences warm temperate climatic conditions. Both Themakha and Gangju chiwogs are spread over slope overlooking the lateral highway along Dangchu. However the landscape and agriculture field in Themakha are flatter and broader compared to as that of Gangju chiwog.

b. Economic context

The main economic activity of residences in both treatment and control area is subsistence farming, which includes both agriculture and livestock activities. Paddy is the main crop cultivated under the cereal production while potato farming is the main income generation activity. Cattle rearing is also popular economic activity that provide substantial income for the farmers across the study area. Of late vegetable cultivation is picking up, both for home consumption and transaction in the local market. In both treatment and control area, farmers are still using local or traditional varieties of cereal and vegetable crops. Fruit trees are rare except for few local peach and pear. Given access to irrigation water, potentials exist to upscale agriculture production through introduction and promotion of improved and high yielding crop varieties. In fact, potato cultivation widely adopted by the farmers in the two gewogs as income generating activity. Many households in the study area are also growing vegetables, both for own consumption and for sale. Opportunity to promote livestock production is also present as rearing of cattle is common in the area. The introduction of improved cattle breeds should improve the income generation capacity of households inThemakha and Gangju chiwogs. The existing farm road network connection within the chiwogs provide year round access to maket the produce. Annual crop production in the study area in MT Crops Bjena gewog Nyisho gewog

Rice 474.00 394.00 Wheat 41.54 43.59 Potato 1485.00 316.57 Vegetables 210.00 176.78

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c. Administrative context

The gewog administration is headed by Gup and supported by administrative officer, clerk, Mangmi and respective Tshogpas. While the posts of administrative officer and clerk are appointed by the government, rests are the represntatives of the people elected through democratic process. Mangmi is the second in command in the gewog office and the Tshogpas represent the chiwogs from where they are elected. Bjena gewog has 5 Tshogpas from 5 chiwogs while Nyisho gewog has 6 Tshogpas from 6 chiwogs. Infrastructure and other facilities in the study area Particulars Bjena gewog Nyisho gewog RNR centre (#) 1 1 Irrigation schemes (#) 36 6 Farm road (km) 55 40 Villages (#) 5 13 Farmers cooperatives 2 0 Forest coverage (%) 43.4 82.5 Community centre (#) 1 1 Central school (#) 0 1 Primary school (#) 1 0 NFE centres (#) 0 3 Lhakhangs (#) 13 9 BHU/ORC (#) 4 3

d. History of the irrigation scheme

Lachu yuwa is 1.69 kilometerslong funded entirely by the government and constructed in 1961 as per the record maintained by the Engineering Division, DoA. No respondents in the treatment area are able to tell the exact yearof construction. The initial construction of the scheme was contracted out while all subsequent renovations were carried out involving the beneficiaries. The major canal renovation was carried out in 2014. Government provided all the materials and the farmers contributed labour forces following the local custom. Lachu yuwa has a command area of 30.78 acres. The recent renovation further improved the distribution system at the tail end of the canal. The 25 households within the command area has the ageold mechanism of sharing water based on the size of the land holding. Formation of Water User Association(WUA) is prerquisite while irrgation scheme is being constructed as per the National Irrigation Policy 2012.In reality, active and functional WUAis not observed in the field. The case is the same in the present study area. However the customary and traditional canal maintenance and water sharing mechanism is very strongand the practice is still followed actively.A caretaker is appointed from among the beneficiaries on rotational basis. His job is to inspect the canal and clear the minor blockage. When he is not able to clear the blockage alone and requires more hands, he informs the

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beneficiaries for additional labour inputs. The majorcanal cleaning campaign is performed twice a year involving all the beneficiaries. 2. Methodology Based on the location and the size of the irrigation schemes, the study sites were selected. Lachu yuwa in Themakha chiwog, under Bjena gewog of Wangdue Phodrang Dzongkhag, as treatment sample fell under small priority north (SPN) category. As suitable control study area could not be found in the same gewog, Gangju chiwog, under Nyisho gewog was selected as control area. The sample selection was done in close consultation with the concerned Dzongkhagstaff. The data collection was carried out in the second half of April 2016. At least 5 days each were spent in each study sites. Concerned officers at Dzongkhag and gewog level were informed on the field visits. Local government officials, Gups, Mangmi at the gewog centres were briefed personally on arrival. The concerned Tshogpas were involved throughout the data collection periodat each study sites. The agriculture extension offier of the respective gewogs accompanied the team and actively participated in the entire process. Households were selected randomly for the interview. However, the team had tried to interview all the households both in the control and treatment. Except for the few households who could not be interviewed, majority of households in both treatment and control area have been interviewed. The data collection was followed by data compilation, analyses, interpretation and drafting of the report. The data analyses was done using SPSS and Excel sofwares. Key informent The discussion with key informants were organized mainly to record the overall situation of the area under study. Both in the treatment and control area, 5 village elders who had fair knowledge of the village and the irrigation canal were interviewed using a structured questionnaires. Household interview A total of 31 individuals at Themmakha (treatment) and 22 farmers in Gangju (control) were interviewed following a strucutre questionnaires. The team travelled to individual household members and recorded the information using a Tablet. Focus group discussion Focus group discussion was attended by 8 participants in Themakha and 7 in Gangju. The discussion was guided by a checklist prepared in advance. The group also provided additional information that was nor coered in the other questionnaires. This forum also provided opportunity to discuss differing views and come to a concensus. Note The Wangduephodrang case is little different from other cases. Lachu yuwa located in Themakha chiwog under Bjena Gewog is selected as treatment area for the study. But a suitable control could not be found within the Bjena gewog. Therefore, Gangju chiwog,

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under Nyisho gewog is selected as the control study area, in consultation with the Dzongkhag officials. 3. Findings

Most important perceived changes by local population

Key informant session was conducted with five prominent farmers each in the control and treatment area. Households in treatment area reported signficant changes which occured over the span of one decade where major developmental activities like electricity, farm road ect were initiated in the village. Such interventions, farmers reported had brought changes in the mode of cooking. All households in Thaemakha village now own eletric stove for cooking purpose because of which, except in a few exceptional cases, use of firewood in the community has been drastically reduced. Household also were also of the opinion that the forest coverage had improved eversince the arrival of electricity. Potato cultivation was a rare phenonomenon in the Thaemakha before 2014. This is because majority of the people owned land in Phobjikha where they grow potatoes for both consumption and commercial purpose. Given the vast land and gentle slope, households preferred mass cultivation of potato in the area. With the major renovation of Lachu-Yuwa, households reported of significant boost in potato cultivation in thier locality, thus leading to increased income. On the other hand, people in Gangju community reported increasing instance of fallow land, empty households and decreasing interest of farmers in agriculture. Ganju village originally depended on a small stream from nearby ridge for both farming and drinking purposes. The stream dried up in 2013 and farmers had to depend totally on rain both for consumption and cultivation. For household consumption, household also transport drinking water using tractor from another settlement located below. While the households reported increase in the forest coverage over the years, they were not able to identify the cause as to why the stream had dried. Our physical observation also confirmed the presence of lush green forests. Thus, a detail study is needed to understand the underlying cause of streams drying up in the community as it cannot be attributed to the degradation of forest in the community. Given the acute water shortage for agricultural purposes, households explore alternatives means of sustenance and income generation through off-farm opportunities like wage works. Few of the households have already abondoned their farmland and migrated to other places. Few more households were also contemplating to migrate soon. Main gainers (% of declarations) Main losers (% of declarations)

1. All farmers None

‘treatment’ area ‘control’ area 1. Road Increasing fallow land 2. Potato plantation Empty households

3. Mode of cooking Wage workers 4.

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Questions were also asked to see if there had been any difference in the benefits accrued out of irrigation scheme renovation. Majortiy of the informants reported that all farmers; large and small landholders, poor and rich households and young and old alike have benefited from the irrigation scheme. This is because every household in the area has equal and continuous access to irrigation water. However, one Key Informant reported that arrival of perennial irrigation water has benefitted small holder farmers more than the landlords (described separately later). The important finding relating to the benefits irrigation has accrued to women is also being described separately later. On the otherhand, it has been reported that women in the control area has to cater to increasing responsibilities of carrying out household chores and farming works as male members are generally out for wage works. It was also reported that, otherwisecommunity in the control area also practice division of labour like in the treatment area.

a. Food self-sufficiency

Table 1: Self-sufficiency ratio In ‘treatment’ area In ‘control’ area

Percentage of households with Food self-sufficiency ratio for cereals

More than 1 96.2 0 Between 0.75 and 1 3.8 30 Between 0.5 and 0.75 0 10 Less than 0.5 0 60.0

Median of food self-sufficiency ratio for cereals for all households interviewed

5.8 .32

The above table shows the food self-sufficiency ratio for the treatment and control area of this case study. The self sufficiency ratio is calculated based on total annual production of cereals in kg divided by sum total of an annual individual cereal requirement for the family. For the simplicity of calculation we made few asssumptions as follows;

1) On an average, cereals contain 3858 kcal per kg 2) A daily requirement of 2200 kcal per person per day (FAO, 2005) 3) In cereal terms, a daily requirement of 570=(2200 kcal) gm per person per day was

computed. For the ease of analysis, the findings were grouped under various catetgories like food sufficiency of more than 1, .75 to 1, .50 to .75 and less than .50. More than 1 implies household is more than food self-sufficient, i.e.the households produce more than what is required for their consumption whil .75 implies food self-sufficiency of only 75 percent meaning the remaining amount 25 percent met through various coping mechanisms. Similarly, .50 represent 50 percent self-sufficiency ratio. The median value of food self-sufficiency also shows contrasting picture between the two settlement. The table shows varying picture for household food self-sufficiency in the control and treatment under different categories. In the treatment area, 96.2 percent of the households reported food-self-sufficiency of more thanone while remainder householders reported of

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.75 to 1 percent food-self-sufficiency. On the otherhand, all the households in the control area reported food self-sufficeny of less than one. About 30 percent of the them reported .75 to 1 food self-sufficiency while rest cohort reported either, .50 to .75 or less than 50 percent sufficiency rate. The above table shows that households under treatment area are better off than those in the control area with more than 96% of the households reportong food self-sufficiency of more than one while there is no household repoting same in the control area. Instead, 60 percent of the households reported food self-sufficiency of less than 50 percent in the control area. This differences can be attributed to the fact that the housheholds in the treatment area has adequate and perennial access to irrigation waterwherebyhouseholds have the luxury to cultivate paddy in the summer and other cash crops like potato in the winter. Households reported during the Focus Group Discussion that emerging markets in the nearby towns coupled with government’s support services through the extension staffs have also enabled people to venture into more commercialistic type of agriculture. On the otherhand, households in the control area do not have access to even adequate water let alone water for irrigation. Farmer in the area heavliy depend on rain during the cropping season to cultivate cereals for self-consumption. A stream located nearby settlement, which was the only source of irrigation and drinking water, dried completely few years back after which all the paddy fields was forced to be kept fallow. Apart from the very minimal level of food production, farmers depend heavily on off-farm activities like contract works, remittances etc for their sustainence. Self-sufficiency ratio by area wise Study Group Total Cereal production Total food requirement Self-sufficiency ratio Treatment 137225 23509.65 5.84 Control 8263 18516.45 .45 The area wise comparison also shows vast difference in the food self-sufficiency between control and treatment. The treatment area with 5.84 food self-sufficiency is far better off than the control area which has the SSR or only .45.

b. Increased income Table 2: Average household cash income from various sources

Study group

Treatment Control

Mean Std. Deviation Mean Std. Deviation

Crop Products Last Year 12700 11900 3000 Vegetables Last Year 22000 23890.4 14125 8184.3 Fruit Crops Last Year 4000 4082.5 1000 Cash crop income last year 21166.6 26360.5 13640.5 7456.4

Livestock Products Last Year 24500 27340.4 4333.3 5240.8 Forest Product Last Year 5000 Remittances Last Year 23545.4 13201.2 15666.6 4041.5 Off Farm Activity Last Year 4 5.65 43461.5 40954.5

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The above table provides comparison of average income and standard deviation for income for treatment and control area. The standard deviation shows variation of income among diffrent housholds from its average income. The greater the deviation from its mean, the greater variation income distribution amongst households and lesser the standard deviation, lesser the variation in come distribution and thus a greater homogienity in the income distribution. The treatment area earns majority of its income from the sale of cereals, livestock produts, cash crops and remittances. Households in the treatment area earn least from the off-farm activities. On the otherhand, under control area, households earn major share of income from off-farm activities like contract works. As described earlier, majority of the male household members migrate to other places in search of alterntive employment opportunites to support family back in the village. They also earn incomes from sale of cash crops, remittances etc. It also shows that household don’t sell cereals in the market. of the viriation in the distribution of income is more in the treatment area than in the control area. For instance, it can be seen that there is a huge variation in income from cereal, cash crops, livetock and vegtables meaning income earned from these sources vary hugely at the individual household level. On the otherhand, the variation of income from various sources iscomparatively better in the control area. The plausible explaination to such variation can be attributed to the fact that few households in the treatment area were found to be practicing share cropping as a tenant in landlord’s land. These cohort of households were basically small holding farmers who were required to share the production with the landlords. Thus, those tenants, while they produce enough for them and landlords, they were not able to produce adequate surpluses to sell in the market.

In contrary, all the households surveyed in the control area owned land. However, given with the water scarcity, households generally practice subsistence farming. While nobody was able to explain difference in the landholding, people believed that such situation was in existence from their ancestors. According to the Inheritance Act of Bhutan, every child in the household is entitled for an equal share of land from their parents. The

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share of land they receive will also depend on the size land holding and size of family entitled for their fair share. Thus, it is likely that farmers with large family members saw rapid fragmentation of land eventually leading to decrease in the average land holdings. However, a detail study in this regard would be necessary to understand on how and why there are instances of some farmers owning limited land. Table 3. Trend of household income since the irrigation scheme was established (%) In ‘treatment’ area In ‘control’ area

Increase Decrease Same Increase Decrease Same

Crop products

22

0

78

0

0

100

Vegetables 44 11 44 13 38 50

Fruit crops 0 0 100 100 0 0

cash crop 17 8 75 21 16. 63 Livestock products 43 7 50 0 0 100 Non-wood forest products

NA NA NA NA NA 100

Remittances 18 9 73 0 0 100 Other off-farm activities

0 0 100 92 0 8

The table 4 shows the trend of income generation from various sources under treatment and control area. About 78 percent of the households in treatment area reported that the income generation from cereals have reamined same while 22 percent reported increase in the income gerentation. There was a mixed perception regarding the income from sale of vegetables while 26 percent and 43 percent reported increase in income from sale of cash crops and livetsock products respectively. There was no change in the trend reported for income from off-farm activities. On the otherhand, more than 92 percent of households under control area reported increase in the income from off-farm activities while they also reported mixed opinnion on income from other sources. Here, it is important to note that 100 percent increase regarding income from cash crop could not considered since only one household reported income from sale of cash crop. A major renovation of Lachu-Yuwa located in Thaemakha village underwent huge maintainence work in 2014. For that matter, 2014 was used a reference year for this survey report. While the gradual transformation of agricutlure farming from subsistence to commercial became seemingly visible even before 2014, a major boost occured with the major renovation of irrigation channel which assured year round irrigation water for the farmers in Thaemakha village. Coupled with this, such phenomenal changes in agriculture were also attributed to other developmental initiatives that have led to improved services like seed subsidy, supply of improved seeds and seedlings, livetstock and readily available extension servics.Moreover, construction of motorable roads and expansion of Bajo town had also ensured assured access and booming market which pprovided them with the revamped impetus to take advantageon the emerging opportunities to earn income and improve living standard. Households capitalized on emerging and promising crops like rice,

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potato and some vegetables. This, over the past few years have, led to decrease in the production of some crops which they earlier used to grow. Farmers, for instance, are no longer insterested to grow traditionall grown crops like buckwheat, millet, wheat etc., but engage mostly on commercially viable crops like potato, rice etc. Wheat grown in some households is primarily used as fodder for cattles. There were no report of new crops grown but farmers now grow more improved rice, potao and vegetables in their land. With assured irrigation farmers grow paddy in summer and potato in winter which has become their main cash crop. Such services are/were also made available in the control area, similar impacts could not be generated given with the acute water shortage. The Gewog Agriculture Extension Officer reported that potato and wheat wilting has become more common in the area. While these interventions have impacted lives of farmers in various means, they also reported their concerns on some of the pressing issues confronting their farming bussiness. Households reported on the increasing instance of crop being damaged by wild animals. While the data for crop damaged was not collected, households reported that a sizeable amount of paddy and potato being damage yearly primarily by wild boars. About 23 percent of the households in the treatment area reported that the paddy production has reduced due to wildlife damaged. Similarly, 7 percent of the households reported decreasing potato production due to wildlife damage. Such situation can be attributed to a strong conservation ethics of the government in general and also to increased forest coverage in the community in particular due to reduced firewood consumption after the arrival of electricity. However, the situation to certain is expected to increase as part of their farm land is going to be protected with the instalation of electric fencing. Such report on crops damage by wildlife was also reported, but it was not as serious as irrigation water shortage in the control area. Table 4: Crop diversification: difference in sources of agricultural income between ‘treatment’ and ‘control’ areas. Sources of agricultural income ‘treatment’ area ‘control’ area Share of agricultural income coming from cereals (%)

10 0.2

Share of agricultural income coming from vegetables (%)

17 11

Share of agricultural income coming from fruits (%)

1 0.1

Share of agricultural income coming from livestock (%)

29 3

Share of agricultural income coming from cash crop (%)

21 26

Share of income from remittance (%) 22 5 Share of income from off-farm (%) 0.001 55 The above table shows share of income for households under treatment and control areas. Majority of the income under the treatment area comes from sale of vegetable, livestock, cash crops and remittances. On the other hand, income from off-farm activities constitute the maximum for control area. This is because of the acute water shortage which has result

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is household exploring alternative engagement largely in off-farm activities like wage workers to earn income. The same has a very minimal share in the treatment area. This was also supplemented by farmers during the focus group discussion in control area. Thus, it is deducible from the above observation that the presence of irrigation scheme had contributed income generating income from various agricultural activities in the treatment area while off-farm has gained importance in the control area in the absence of irrigation water.

c. Enhanced food and nutrition security

Table 5: Food security situation and coping mechanism In ‘treatment’ area In ‘control’ area

% of households experiencing food shortages Before After Before After 12.9% 9.7 % 31.8% 68.2%

Duration of the food shortage

Less than 1 month shortage 0 5 0 - 1 to 3 months shortage 10 7 9 27 - 3 to 6 months shortage 0 0 18 18 - more than 6 months shortage 3 3 0 23

Coping mechanism

- Purchase 50 33 17 38 - Borrow 0 0 0 - Barter 0 0 0 -Remittances 0 11 0 0 - Labour exchange 38 56 17 13 - Other 13 67 50

Food is defined to be sufficient when people have enough quantity of food produced on farm for consumption year round. When household does not have enough food for year round consumption and has to depend on various copping measure to supplement food, it is considered as food shortage. Its basically a difference in annual production and annual consumption counted in terms of number of days or months.The above table describes the incidenceand duration of food shortages experienced by households in the treatment and control area. The above table provides a clear case scenario of role of irrigation in acheiveing food self-sufficiency. Before major renovation of the irrigation channel, the incidents of food shortages were 12.9 and 31.8 percent of the total households respectively for treatment and control area. During the survey period March, 2016, the food shortage incidents in treatment was reduced to 9.7 percent while it just increased to 68.2 in control area. It may be noted that the increase in food shortage can be attributed to the decrease in food production due to male out-migration and irrigation problem. However, it is important that male out-migration also provided households remittances to cope family members with food shortages. Households also tend to engage in activities outside irrigation like cash crops, collection of non-wood forest products, vegetables etc. Thus, as reflected in table 3 and 4, it is attributable that the increasing amount of income from the sale of above these products have increased their purchasing power. This is also further corroborated with the coping mechanism household use to meet up the shortage.

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d. Diversification and intensification Table 6: Crop diversification: difference in crops cultivated between ‘treatment’ and ‘control’ areas (total area under treatment and control) Percentage of area cropped (area level) ‘treatment’ area ‘control’ area

Percentage of total area cropped

- cereals 79.19 75.55 - vegetables 10.09 1.96

- fruit 6.15 0.31 - cash crops 4.72 13.91

Number of different crops present on the

farm

- cereals 1.48 .95 - vegetables 1.25 .72 - Fruit crops 1.03 .63 -Cash crops .45 .40

The above figure provides a comparison between treatment and control regarding the percentage of area under various crop cultivation. It also provides picture about the impact of irigation on crop diversification and intensfication practiced bytwo groups. The above table shows that the treatment area has large portion of areas under cereals, vegetables and fruits as compared to the control area. However, the share of cash crops is greater in control area. This can be attributed to the fact that, in the absence of irrigation scheme, farmers increasingly depend on seasonal and rain fed cash crops like potato. Income share from cash crop has also been found greater as shown in the earlier tables. The table also shows that households in the treatment fare well in terms of number of different crops grown in the field. The table shows, on an average, household under the treatment area more than one cereal, vegetables and fruit crops as compared to less than one in the control area. Thus, it can also be deduced that, in consonance to other governmental policies, irrigation has also played important role in crop diversification. Table 8: Cropping intensity Percentage of area cropped ‘treatment’ area ‘control’ area Cropping intensity 1.23 0.61 % of cultivated area under double cropping 0 0

The cropping intensity explains the extent of utilization of farm land, i.e., number of times the cropps are cultivated in the same portion of land in a year. Cropping intensity is calculated based on the formula; Cropping intensity= (total cropped/cultivated area). The above figure shows that the cropping intensity is higher in the treatment area than the control area with 1.23 per year. This show, on average, households in the treatment area cultivates more than one crop in the same field in a year which is not the case in the control area. Given with perennial irrigation water, the households in the treatment area practice relay cropping where they cultivate paddy in the summer and grow wheat (majorly as cattle fodder) and potato in the off season. On the other hand, households in the control area do not have access to irrigation scheme. They depend heavily on the monsoon season to

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cultivate or else the farm land is left barren. Thus, on an average, households in the control area cultivate less than a crop in the field.

e. Capacity development

Table 8: water management techniques Percentage of households adopting certain water management techniques

Sprinkler irrigation 0 Drip irrigation 0

Water harvesting techniques 0 Questions were also asked to see if the households in the treatment area used any form of water management techniques like sprinkler, drip or any other form of water harvesting techniques. The survey found out that there were no water management techniques in the treatment areas as the water was available throughout the year through an open channel. Moreover, since farmers do not cultivate much during the winter season, irrigation water which perenially flows through the open channel was found underutilised. It was found during the focus group discussion that people used to cultivate crops during winter seasons even. However, partly due to successful conservation efforts of the government human wildlife conflict has increased over the years which has reported as major hurdle by the coomunity. Moreover, the situation has been further made difficult to promising irrigation water prior to major renovation of 2014. These hurdles have discouraged farmers from growing crops in the winter. Moreover, in winter cattles migrate from Phobjikha to lower places like Thaemakha where they keep open space for cattle grazing. However, the winter cropping is expected to regain momentum as the government has provided support towards establishing electric fencing in the community. On the other hand, given with the water scarcity in the control area, the community has developed and open pond where they store rain water. During summer, the rain water irrigates only about two small paddy terraces while huge area of paddy and has been kept fallow over few years in the control area.

Rainfed water pond in control area Majority of the households under treatment area own land in Phobji Gewog located in the same district. Huge area in Phobji gewog is

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Irrigation water To ensure efficient utilization of water resources during the paddy cultivation season, households under the treatment area has instituted a practice locally known as ‘Mikaey, Chaechu and Chaegi Chae’ water sharing concept. This concept enables all households holding wetland to access and use irrigation water based on the size of wetland. The concept uses wooden stick to measure depth of channel and determine the share of irrigation water for the households. The concept also necessitates all households having wetland to contribute labor for irrigation channel maintenance in accordance to the size of wetland. For instance, a household X owning five acres of wetland will have to contribute more number of labor days for the maintenance than the household Y holding two acres of land. During the paddy plantation time, household X will be entitled for more share of water than household Y. However, given that the survey happened to be in the off-season where there was no major cultivations going on, the team could not witness the practical implementation of such concept in the area. The survey team depended on an anecdote shared by the members in the focus group discussion.

f. Improved water management

The table below shows the extent of utilization of farm land for crop cultivation across the year. The figure were reached considering the proportion of total area irrigated during summer and winter season to the total area households own inclusive area under wet, dry, tshesa and fruits. About 65.45 percent of the land for the treatment area is irrigated throughout the year in treatment area while only about 10 percent is irrigated in summer in control area. This is made possible through rain water storage in the pond which is located above the control area. The pond that store water is about 3 by 5 square meter which takes about two weeks in summer to be

Control area Treatment area

Mikae (full)

Chaechu (half)

Chaegi-chae (quarter)

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filled with rainwater (provided there is a continuous rain). Thereafter, the water is used to irrigate half of the paddy terrace. Farmers again wait for another two weeks to fill the pond to irrigate another half of the paddy terrace. At the most, farmers are able to irrigate two paddy terraces in a year. Thus, for almost a decade now, farmers have stopped growing any form of crops in the winter season. History of such water ponds dates back to immemorial; because even the elderly farmers of the village remembered having seed such ponds during their childhood days. This also indicates that the water shortage in the community was not because of the impacts of drying water source or climate change, but rather a chronic issue that was in existence through generations. In winter, farm lands are left fallow for the want of water. Table 9: Percentage of area irrigated ‘treatment’ area ‘control’ area

% of total cultivated area

% of total cultivated area

Area irrigated in summer (Assured irrigation) 65.47 10.74

Area irrigated in winter 65.45 0

Total cropped area 132.48 23.51 There were no reports of formal Water User Associations (WUAs) or any other groups existing for that matter in both control and treatment area. In case of the irrigation maintenance requiring huge financial expenditure and technical support, they approach the government for support. However, households do provide voluntary labour contribution for regular minor maintenance of irrigation channel in the treatment area. As explained earlier, households take voluntary initiative to contribute labour based on the size of land holdings. The community appoint Yupoen (caretaker) for the period of one year who is responsible to ensure there is enough and consistent water flowing thorugh the channel during his tenure. Yupoen is also resposible for daily inspection of irrigation channel, carry out any minor maintenance and to call for joint voluntary labout contribution in case of bigger maintenance work. Yupoen’s responsibility is on rotation basis and he/she is not entitled for any salary or special preference during the paddy cultivation. Given that such concept of water sharing has been in practice for generations, individual farmers take responsibilities to maintain earn the quota of water share during pdday season. Thus, the community reported no major water related conflicts. 4. Other impacts

a. Environmental impact

The source of Lachu-Yuwa is located far from the settlement deep in the forest which shares boundary with the neighboring Rubisa Gewog. The vicity of irrigation water source is densely covered with rich vegtetation. As such, there were no report of any environmental impact like landslide or erosions even during the monsoon season.

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Table 10: Chemical fertilizers and pesticides used Average amount used/acre cultivated ‘treatment’ area ‘control’ area

Average amount of chemical fertilizer used (kg/acre) 5.38 26.38

Average amount of plant protection chemical used(kg/acre) 2.30 0.08

Average amount of farmyard manure used (kg/acre) 254.56 263.32 Total Land acre 117.16 19.14

This table tries to explain the use of chemical fertilizers and manure by households under control and treatment. The chemical fertilizer usage is comparatively more in control than the treatment area. While a specific information on which crop do they use chemical fertilisers was not asked, it is likely that household use chamical fertilisers for wheat and potato which was found to be cultivated in the community. As reported earlier, the control area not only has acute shortage of irrigation water but also has insufficient drinking water. In light of such scenario, households in the control area tend to use more chemical fertilisers and farmyard manure to commensurate water shortage to increase crop productivity. For instance, it was reported that in the winter seasons, households grow wheat, potato and garlic. However, due to very scanty and erratic rainfall the crops hardly grow to reap few quantities out of it. Our physical observation with the gewog RNR extension staffs also found outthat the crops grown in the winter generally fails to fruit as it wilt due to water shortage. Farmers in the control area abandoned paddy cultivation for almost a decade and they depend exclusively on dry land cultivation for their sustenance. This survey has also found out that there were instances of ‘Gungtongs’ (empty households) due to migration caused by water shortage. About two more households were planning to migrate to other place where there is access to irrigation and drinking water.

Settlement abondoned due to water shortage

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On an average, households under both treatment and control area use equivalent amount of farmyard manure in the field. However, if we consider the average size of land holding, the average landholding of is 3.77 acre per household in the treatment area is four times more than the average land holding for households under the control area. Yet the households under treatment use more farmyard and chemical manure than the treatment area. However, the crop productivity is very low in the control area. This also tends to posit that farmers in the control area use more fertilizers and manure to increase the production and productivity whichis likely to cause more environmental damages. However, this research did not covered aspects like to impact of chemical fertilisers on the soil fertility. Farmers during the focus group discussion also reported of rainfall becoming increasingly scanty and erratic. They hardly receive rain during the off seasons.

Table 11: Trend of utilization Treatment Control increased decreased Same Increased decreased same Chemical fertilizers 30 0 70 33.33 8.33 58.33 PP chemicals 17.65 0 82.35 37.5 0 67.5 FYM 3.85 7.69 88.46 0 41.67 58.33

This table also supports above findings that farmers in the control area use more chemical fertilizers. About 34 percent of the respondents reported increased utilization of chemical fertilizers compared to 30 percent in the treatment area. On the other hand, about 41.67 percent of the household reported decreased used of farmyard manure in the control area.Decrease in the use of farmyard manure can be attributed to fact that about 59.1 percent of the households in the control area reported of decrease in the number of cattles owned due to natural death, lost to world predators and also due to manpower shortage. As reported earlier, manpower shortage can be laregely attributed to the fact that most village men migrate elsewhere to work as a wage worker such as contract works etc.

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Table 12: Time use pattern Activities ‘treatment’ area (%) ‘control’ area (%)

Mostly men

Mostly women

Both Mostly men

Mostly women

Both

Household chores 3.2 80.6 16.1 0 86.4 13.6

Engagement in groups

32.3 19.4 48.4 18.2 50 48.4

Agriculture farming 6.5 12.9 80.6 4.1 22.7 72.7

Livestock 9.7 58.1 32.3 0 72.7 27.3

NWFP collection 19.4 9.7 71 4.5 18.2 77.2

Post-harvest & processing

3.2 25.8 71 0 72.7 27.3

Marketing 19.4 51.6 29 13.6 59.1 27.3

Guarding crops from wildlife

54.8 3.2 41.9 36.4 18.2 45.5

Attending annual events

3.2 6.5 90.3 0 40.9 59.1

Meetings and interviews

38.7 22.6 38.7 22.7 54.5 22.7

Information was also collected to study if the irrigation has had any impacts on the time use pattern of farmers. Information was collected on engagement in household chores, attending annual events and meeting, marketing, guarding crops etc. The table shows that women spend majority of their time in household chores, livestock related works and marketing of products. Men, on the other hand, spend majority ot the time in guarding crops in the treatment area. Both man and women equally involve in attending annual events and agricultural farming in both control and treatment area. In order to understand the above roles from gender perspective, this survey has also collected trend information to analyse changes occured on these roles over the years. The analysis also showed no major changes in the roles occurred after the major irrigation renovation. However, households during the focus group discussion reported that irigation has brougt immense benefits to women workers.

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b. Social cohesion

The age old practice of water sharing mechanism “Mikaey Chaedchu” concept has enabled people of the treatment area to access irrigation water is a very sustainable way. This mechanism of sharing water, people say, has been in practice since construction of Lachu Yuwa some time in 1961.This concept enable all the wetland holders to access water as per the size of wetland. Everybody agrees on the quantity of water they are entitled for and they remain abided by it. However, in certain cases, they reported of some quarrels when some members would not abide by the standard agreement of water sharing mechanism. This seldomly occurs during the peak monsoon season when the paddy cultivation is very vigorous. But, it was report, that such cases has been very minimul and people by and large abide by this water sharing mechanism.Similarly, no cases of dispute was reported from drinking water, farmroad, grazing, NWFp and others.

In Thaemakha, there is a clear division of labour between men and women with regard to agriculture farming in most part of west in Bhutan. Such tradition, peeople say, has been in practice since their ancestor’s time. The division of labour is based on the generally believed notion that men can undertake those works requiring huge physical strength. Thus, the male members in the family have the responsibility to undertake tilling, terracing and irrigating while women are responsible for paddy transplantation, manuring, weeding. Harvesting, as reported, is being carried out jointly. Prior to 2014 before the major maintenance work for irrigation channel was carried out, the irrigation water was often erratic whereby paddy field would remain waterless for days which left paddy field dry often resulting in paddy field becoming high compact with both paddy and weeds getting stuck with dry mud. This has caused women members in the family dearly as they had to dedicated additionalt time and involved using huge physical strength. It was found really cumbersome when a limited number of women had to weed acres of paddy field. With the major renovation of channel in 2014, irrigation water has been very consistend and farmers need not worry about it any more. While it has saved time for all, it has particularly benefitted women members as they need not worry about weeding difficulties like past years. Moreover, it has enabled woment to save time which is used for other productive activities.

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5. Conclusion Irrigation obviously has contributed a lot in bringing notable changes in the livelihood of people in the treatment than in the control area. One of the most notable role of irrigation was on achieving the food self-sufficiency and reducing food shortage. Where rice is a main staple food for farmers, the report has shown that access to irrigation contributed in increasing food self-sufficiency while absence of irrigation worsens the situation. Similar better offs can be seen in terms of income generation sources, cropping intensity, food self-sufficiency and general standard of living. Such changes, however, may not be able to attribute exclusively to irrigation channel given that such changes were reportedly occurred in complement to other developmental initiatives of the government. Having said this, the critical role irrigation has played cannot be undermined as other complementary developmental initiatives and services were not able to effect significant changes due to the lack of irrigation water in the control area.

A unique case of small holder empowerment Small holder farmers in Themakha village pratice share cropping working as tenant in the landlords field. Farmers say that such practice of small land holders working for the landlords had been there from their ancestor’s time. Tenant share the production with the landlords at the end of the year as per the understanding reached between the two. Given that the tenants survival were at the mercy of large holding farmers, landlords obviously had enormous control over them. These landlords generated huge size of land from their ancestors long time back, while few of the small land holders worked as tenant in their land from their ancestor’s time. With the developmental initiatives of the government, services like irrigation, farm roads, power tiller, improved seed, fertilisers etc came to their door step which has drastically improved agriculture production. This, landlords clain has left tenants with enough surpluses for their consumption as well as for sale. Moreover, the developmental programs of the government has opened door for various other off-farm income generatiin alternatives like wage work etc at local as well as in other areas. On the otherhand, given that the landlord-tenant share cropping practices had been in practiced since their ancestor’s time, landlords have become heavily depended on tenants for agricultural works. In a way, this has landed landlords skill-less. It was reported that any substantail demand by landlords to tenants would encourage tenant leaving the farming work for some other better alternatives. Thus, it was reported that except for paddy share as agreed initially, other crops like potato grown during the off season has become exclusive right of tenants. Landlords were not able to deamnd their fair e share of crops grown during the off season as they fear losing their tenants. However, this was perception of one of the key informant which cannot be construed in totality as a reliable finding of this survey. But to what extend the claim is true and how far will this trend have a cascading effect is a case to be seen because our report showed that the landlords have benefitted more from irrigation.

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IRRIGATION POLICY IMPACT ASSESSMENT

A case study on Zila Irrigation Channel in Zhemgang

August, 2016

SonamJamtsho, Policy and Planning Division, Ministry of Agriculture and Forests

ii

Executive Summary As per the National Irrigation Policy (Revised 2012), irrigation is defined as, ‘a system consisting of structures and facilities for conveying water from a source to the agricultural field which the local community/group collectively operate and maintain for their common use’. In Bhutan, irrigation mainly caters to the wetlands/paddy fields and rarely to dry land and orchards. Although water management techniques have been initiated, it still remains at infancy. While the construction of irrigation channels has enabled the communities to cultivate and enhance paddy production, the rise in the production of other cereals and cash crops except for vegetables cannot be directly attributed to the existence of irrigation channel. Since the renovation of the Zila Irrigation Channel in 2001, the production of various agricultural produces has seen an increase which in turn has led to enhancing food self-sufficiency in the community. However, except for the increase in paddy and vegetable production, the improvements seen in the community cannot be attributed to the construction of the irrigation channel. It is also important to note that the irrigation is used mostly in summer. The people in the community do not sell cereals in huge quantities. However, the irrigation has helped the Farmers’ Group called Gomphu Payten TshesayNyamleyTshodge venture into vegetable production. They sell their produce to the Gomphu Lower Secondary School and earn a decent cash income. Except for minor landslides caused by the irrigation channel during the monsoon, no major environmental impact has been reported till date. Moreover, no significant change is observed in terms of input utilization in the community.

iii

Table of Contents Executive Summary ..........................................................................................................................ii

Contents 1. Introduction and background ........................................................................................................ 85

2. Methodology ......................................................................................................................................... 86

3. Findings .................................................................................................................................................. 87

i. Objectives pursued ........................................................................................................................... 88

a. Food self-sufficiency .................................................................................................................. 88

b. Increasedincome .................................................................................................................... 89

c. Variation of cash income since the irrigation scheme was established ................ 90

d. Enhanced food and nutrition security ........................................................................... 91

e. Diversification and intensification .................................................................................. 92

f. Capacity development .............................................................................................................. 93

g. Improved water management ............................................................................................... 94

h. Other impacts observed ....................................................................................................... 94

a. Environmental impact .............................................................................................................. 94

b. Input utilisation ...................................................................................................................... 94

c. Social cohesion ............................................................................................................................ 95

d. Enhanced time use ................................................................................................................. 95

4. Conclusionand recommendations ............................................................................................... 96

5. Reference ............................................................................................................................................... 96

85

1. Introduction and background With an estimated area of 2421.74 KM2, Zhemgang Dzongkhag is located in the south-central region of the country and shares borders with Bumthang to the north, Trongsa and Sarpang to the west, andMongar and Pemagatshel to the east. About 87.70percent of the total area is under forest cover.

The economy of Zhemgang Dzongkhag is predominantly agrarian as farming provides the main source of livelihood for the majority of the rural population. The people cultivate mainly maize followed by rice, buckwheat, millet, barley, wheat, foxtail millet, potato, etc. Orange is the main source of cash income for the southern and central Gewogs of the Dzongkhag. The northern Gewogs depend on livestock products for source of income. Zhemgang has the highest incidence of poverty (26.3%) in the country and remains among the most vulnerable districts in terms of food security. With the increase in accessibility brought about by the construction of the gewog connectivity roads and farm roads, tourism could be a viable developmental activity. Ready markets brought about by the accessibility could also encourage farmers to produce more agricultural and livestock products. Moreover, as the Dzonkhag Administration and a satellite town called Tingtingbi are located in Trong gewog it has created business opportunities for the gewog. Fishing and bird watching are also identified by the gewog administration as activities which have development potential.

The TrongGewog administration is located at Tingtibi by the Gelegphug-Trongsa highway. The Gewog Centre is 35 km away from the Dzongkhag Administration and lies at an altitude of 500-620 meters above the sea level with extreme type of climate, very hot in summer and cold in winter. Out of the eight Gewogs in Zhemgang, Trong is considered as one of the prosperous gewogs because of its proximity to the National High Way and farm road accessibility to all five chiwogs and villages.

Out of five chiwogs in Trong, Gomphu has been chosen for the policy impact assessment case study. With a total of 83 households, the population of Gomphu is 733 with a male-female ratio of almost 1:1. Gomphu is located approximately 9 km abovePralingatop a ridge

86

with gentle slope. Praling is about 67 km from Zhemgang towards Panbang. ‘Gom’ means meditation while ‘Phu’ refers to hills in local language.

There are about three irrigation channels in Gomphu, namely Chakharbi, Runbang and Zila. During the time of the field visit, a new irrigation channel called Thongkarchhu Irrigation Channel was being constructed. In addition, according to the local residents, the Changchangma Irrigation Channel was abandoned halfway through its construction in the past because of difficult terrain it had to pass and also because the water source identified earlier was far. Zila Irrigation Channel which benefits more than 20 households in Gongbaleng and Zila Gewogs was chosen for the impact assessment. Both the Gewog Administration as well as the residents of Gomphu do not exactly remember when the Zila Irrigation Channel was built. However, it was renovated in 2001 with financial support from the Royal Government of Bhutan and the work was awarded to a contractor. Although no goongdawoola1was imposed, people made voluntary labour contribution. Although there is no formal Water Users Association bound by by-laws, a group comprised of wetland owners serve the purpose.As clearly reflected in the National Irrigation Policy document, routine maintenance like clearing canals/pipes of vegetation, sediments, repairing minor damages to canal embankment, gates, intake structures are carried out by the group.

However, when it comes to major maintenance,they rely on the support from the Gewog and the Dzongkhag as they neither have the capacity nor the financial might. But then, as shown in the pictures above, the irrigation channel is used only during the time of paddy cultivation and it remains covered by bushes and sediments when the season for paddy transplantation is over until it is time for paddy cultivation again, the following year.

2. Methodology Prior to the actual data collection in the field, a pre-test of the survey questionnaire was conducted in Geneykha Gewog under Thimphu Dzongkhag. Following the pre-test, comments from the participants were incorporated and the questionnaire was accordingly improved.

For this case study, ‘treatment’ and ‘control’ area have been selected based on the availability of irrigation. The area which has irrigation and paddy is cultivated is considered

1Beneficiary labour contribution

87

as ‘treatment’ and the households which do not cultivate paddy due to lack of able bodied persons in the family have been selected as the ‘control’ area.

The data collection started from 10th April and went on till 22nd April, 2016. A total of 11 households in the control area and 20 households from the treatment area were interviewed using tablets. In addition to household interviews, Key Informant Interviews and Focus Group Discussions were also carried out.The information collected were then processed in CS Pro and analysed using SPSS and Microsoft Excel.

As the exercise has been a part of the capacity development onpolicy analysis and also becausesampling has not been done as per probability sampling approaches, the findings of this report cannot be representative of the whole nation. Moreover, it is also important to note thatthe sample size is small and is confined to Gomphu Gewog in Zhemgang.

3. Findings The positive changes that the residents of the treatment area have seen are the establishment of Gomphu Lower Secondary School;construction of the farm road and irrigation channel; the institution of Livestock Extension Centres, Agriculture Extension Centres and Basic Health Unit;formation of Farmers’ Group called Gomphu Payten TshesayNyamleyTshodge; and the establishment of an eco-lodge.

While the school has helped increase the enrolment rate of children into the school who would otherwise choose to stay back at home and till the fields, farm road has brought about much needed accessibility. The institution of Basic Health Unit and Livestock and Agriculture Centres have brought essential service delivery to their doorstep. While the eco-lodge has put in place basic amenities for tourists, the irrigation channel has not only helped them increase paddy production but has also led tothe formation of Farmers’ Group through which vegetable production has been enhanced and the group has been able to sell it to the Gomphu Lower Secondary School.

As the control area is not very far from the treatment area, the residents of the control area also derive the benefits equally from the facilities in the treatment area, except for the irrigation channel and the Farmers’ Group.

The households in the treatment area having wetland, irrespective of social standing and gender have been benefitted equallyfrom the irrigation channel because irrigation in Bhutan predominantly caters to the wetlands and those devoid of wetland do not stand a chance to benefit from the irrigation channels. However, the community declares thatthere are no household who have been adversely affected by the irrigation channel.

88

i. Objectives pursued

a. Food self-sufficiency

In order to determine the cereal self-sufficiency ratio2, total production of cereals (in kg) of all the households have been divided by the sum of individual cereal requirement for each family member. Although the energy requirement is different for different age groups and gender, it has been assumed that the daily energy requirement for simplicity sake is 0.570 kg.

As reflected in the graph above, the blue line shows the cereal self-sufficiency rate in the treatment area and the red line shows the same for control area. In terms of self-sufficiency, the households in the control area seems to fare better than the ones in the treatment area.For instance, 23.5% of the households have self-sufficiency ratio of more than 1 as opposed to 20% in the control area. However, there are more households who have a sufficiency ratio of 0.75-1 and 0.5-0.75 in the control area than in the treatment area. 52.9% of households in the treatment area has a self-sufficiency ratio of less than 0.5 percent whereas 40% of households in the control area has a self-sufficiency ratio of less than 0.5 which means there are lesser people in the control area who have self-sufficiency ratio of less than 0.5 in the control area than in the treatment area.

It is found that the median self-sufficiency ratio for cereals is slightly lesser in treatment area at 0.49than in the control area at 0.52. Although at the first glance, treatment area which has irrigation facility is expected to have higher median self-sufficiency ratio, we should understand that by cereals, the cereals other than paddy which is cultivated in dry land are also included.

2Food self-sufficiency ratio = (Total production of cereals in kg)/(Sum of individual cereal requirement for each family member)

23.5

5.9 17.6

52.9

20

20 2040

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

>1 0.75-1 0.5-0.75 <0.5

% o

f hou

seho

lds

Self-sufficiency ratio

Cereal Self-sufficiency Ratio

In ‘treatment’ area In ‘control’ area

Study Group

Population Sum of cereal requirements in the area

Cereal Production (in KG)

SSR

Treatment 109 22677 17895 0.79 Control 50 10402.5 21945 2.1

89

The table above has been generated by dividing the total cereal production by the sum of cereal requirements at the study group level.At the group level, control area has a self-sufficiency rate of 2.1 as opposed to that of the treatment area which stands at 0.79.

b. Increasedincome Sources of agricultural income ‘treatment’ area ‘control’ area Cereals 0.1 (1) 0.4 (1) Vegetables 1.2 (7) 3.2 (5) Fruits 9.9 (8) 63.3 (5) Cash crops 10.6 (9) 4.8 (5) Livestock 26.7 (5) 6.1 (5) NWFP 0.3 (1) 1.9 (3) Remittances 33.4 (9) 12.5 (7) Off-farm activities 17.8 (9) 7.8 (3) Total 100 100

As illustrated in the table above, in the treatment area, remittance is the most important source of income followed by livestock and off-farm activities. Cereals and non-wood forest products contribute the least to the total income. On the other hand, fruit is the predominant source of income for those in the control area followed by remittance.

The share of income from cereals in treatment area is negligible with just one household having reported about the sale of cereal grains. It is slightly higher in control than treatment because the households in the control area cultivate relatively more cereal crops other than paddy in dry land. Moreover, they sell cereal crops more than the residents of treatment area.

As reflected in the table above, the households in control area derive more income from crop products as compared to those in the treatment area. Remittances and livestock products followed by off-farm activities contribute to majority of the cash income in the treatment area. In the control areas as well, remittances, off-farm activities and livestock products are important source of cash income but other sources are also equally important.

Source of income Treatment Control

Crop products (cereal grains) 1000 45455 Vegetables (Chilli, asparagus, cauliflowers, carrot, peas, beans) 10100 39000

Fruit crops (apple, orange) 87000 85000 Cash crops 93000 59000 Livestock products (dairy, meat, eggs and fish) 234000 74500

Non-wood forest products (cordyceps, mushrooms, MAP etc.) 3000 23000 Remittances 293000 153000 Other off-farm activities (business, weaving, pottering, contract works etc.)

156500 95000

Total 877600 573955

90

Mean income and standard deviation of various income sources

Source of income Treatment area

Standard Deviation

Number of HHs

Control area

Standard Deviation

Number of HHs

Crop products (cereal grains)

1000 N/A 1 5000 N/A 1

Vegetables (Chilli, asparagus, cauliflowers, carrot, peas, beans)

1442 1083 7 7800 7596 5

Fruit crops (apple, orange) 10875 8758 8 17000 8585 5 Cash crops 10334 6461 9 11800 10474 5 Livestock products (dairy, meat, eggs and fish)

46800 97957 5 14900 20495 5

Non-wood forest products (cordyceps, mushrooms, MAP etc.)

3000 N/A 1 7667 6350 3

Remittances 32556 31121 9 21857 35381 7 Other off-farm activities (business, weaving, pottering, contract works etc.)

17389 16792 9 31667 20207 3

Although the mean income from livestock products, remittances, off-farm activities, fruit crops and cash crops in the treatment area is significant as illustrated in the table above, the standard deviation against each of the mean income suggests that there is unequal distribution among the households. Similarly, in the control area as well, the mean income from off-farm activities, remittances, livestock products and cash crops are high, like in the control area, the standard deviation indicates that the income distribution in the community is heterogeneous.

c. Variation of cash income since the irrigation scheme was established

Source of income Treatment Control Increase Decrease Same Increase Decrease Same

Crop products (cereal grains) 100 (1) 0 0 100 (1) 0 0 Vegetables (Chilli, asparagus, cauliflowers, carrot, peas, beans)

66.7 (4) 0 33.3 (2) 100 (5) 0 0

Fruit crops (apple, orange) 87.5 (7) 0 12.5 (1) 60 (3) 20 (1) 20 (1) Cash crops 75 (6) 0 25 (2) 60 (3) 0 40 (2) Livestock products (dairy, meat, eggs and fish)

100 (2) 0 0 60 (3) 0 40 (2)

Non-wood forest products (cordyceps, mushrooms, MAP etc.)

100 (1) 0 0 100 (3) 0 0

Remittances 85.7 (6) 14.3 (1) 0 57.1 (4) 0 42.9 (3) Other off-farm activities (business, weaving, pottering, contract works etc.)

71.4 (5) 14.3 (1) 14.3 (1) 100 (3) 0 0

91

86% of the households interviewed in the treatment area have reported increase in the income from various income sources while 10.5% have said that it has remained the same and only 3.5% has reported to have decreased. Similarly, in the control area as well, 80%, 2% and 18% have reported increase, decrease and remained same respectively.

After the construction of the irrigation channel, vegetables, fruit crops and cash crops have increasingly been cultivated in both the control and treatment areas. However, except for vegetables, irrigation does not seem to have played any role.

d. Enhanced food and nutrition security The percentage of households experiencing food shortage is slightly more in control area at 81.8% as compared to 80% in treatment area.

Food shortage here should be understood as the number of months a household is not able to meet their requirement through their own production. 63.1% of the households in control area experiences food shortage for more than 6 months as opposed to 40% in treatment area. However, there are more households who experiences food shortage between 3-6 months in treatment area than in control area. Similarly, there are slightly more households experiencing food shortage in the treatment area than in the control area in the one-three months and less than one-month category.

20 20 20

40

18.2 18.29.1

63.1

010203040506070

<1 month 1-3 months 3-6 months > 6 months

Perc

enta

ge o

f hou

seho

ls

Number of months

Percentage of households facing food shortage

Treatment Control

63

22

14

0

65

23

21

0

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

Purchase

Borrow

Labour exchange

Other

Percentage of households interviewed

Type

s of c

opin

g m

echa

nism

Coping mechanism

Control Treatment

92

The local residents say that people used to depend excessively on the non-wood forest products and to certain extent on shifting cultivation in the past to fill up the food shortage. The situation has changed now and purchase seems to be the predominant form of coping mechanism for the households in both the treatment and control area. There are no other mechanisms being adopted by both the study groups but borrowing and labour exchange is practised by close to half of the households and a third of the households in the control area and treatment area respectively.

e. Diversification and intensification

In the treatment area, cereals constitute 77.3% of the total cropped area whereas in the control area, it makes up less than half of the total cropped area. While half of the cropped area is control area is cash crops, it constitutes just 12.4% in treatment area. Vegetables cropped area in the treatment area is twice as much as the control area.Area under fruit crops cultivation is insignificant in both treatment and control area.

In terms of crop diversity, there are more variety of crops in treatment area than in the control area. While the variance is slim in terms of vegetables and fruit crops diversity, there are considerable difference in the case of cereals and cash crops diversity.

77.3

45.4

10 5.150.3 0.1512.4

49.3

0102030405060708090

Treatment ControlPerc

enta

ge o

f are

a cr

oppe

d

Type of crops

Percentage of area cropped

Creals Vgetables Fuit crops Cash crops

2.55

1.6

1.05

1.81.731.55

0.91

1.45

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

Cereals Vegetables Fruit crops Cash crops

MEA

N O

F CR

OP V

ARIE

TIES

VARIETY OF CROPS

AVERAGE OF CROP VARIETIES CULTIVATED

Treatment Control

93

The mean income in treatment area is higher at Nu. 54,220 than control area at 44956. However, looking at the standard deviation, it is evident that the gap between the haves and the have nots in the treatment area is more than those in the control area.

‘treatment’ area ‘control’ area

Cropping intensity3 1.2 0.4

% of cultivated area under double cropping 0 0

The cropping intensity is derived by dividing total cropped area by total cultivated area.The table above shows that the cropping intensity in the control area is just 0.4 whereas it is exactly threefold in the treatment area. The respondents in the treatment area say that the irrigation facilities in place has played a crucial role in ensuring higher cropping intensity in the treatment area.

Although, there are none who have practised double cropping, few have practised relay cropping of crops like barley and wheat after harvesting paddy.

f. Capacity development

Percentage of households adopting certain water management techniques

Sprinkler irrigation 0

Drip irrigation 0

Water harvesting techniques

0

None of the households interviewed in Gomphuseem to have adopted improvedwater management techniques. In fact, the households interviewed were not even aware about the existence of such improvedtechniques.

Although there is no formal Water User Association being formed in the community, all the households owning wetland jointly carry out routine maintenance works. Therefore, the residents say that conflicts do not arise in terms of water sharing. They also appoint a person who takes care of the irrigation channel regularly. During the time of the harvest, the caretaker is paid in provided certain measure of grains.

3Cropping intensity = (Total cropped area)/(Total cultivated area)

Study group Mean Income

Standard Deviation

Frequency

Treatment 54220 79589 16

Control 44956 34204 10

Total (mean for income & standard deviation)

49588 56897 26

94

g. Improved water management

Of the total land holding in the treatment area, about 10% is irrigated in summer as compared to 3% in the control area. In winter, none of their land receives irrigation. The mean cultivated area in the control area stands slightly higher at 1.68 acres as compared to 1.32 acres in the treatment area.

85% of the paddy fields in the treatment area is irrigated in stark contrast to the control area where only 1 acre is irrigated.In the control area, although people own wetland, they are not able to cultivate paddy due to lack of reliable irrigation amenities and also because of lack of abled body persons in the households.

Availability of irrigation

% of total cultivated area (treatment)

% of total cultivated area (control)

Total wetland irrigated

84.77 (15.14 acres) 42.74 (1 acre)

Not irrigated 15.23 (2.72 acres) 57.26 (1.34 acres)

h. Other impacts observed

a. Environmental impact Although the irrigation channel causes minor landslides in summer, no major damage beyond repair has been caused till date.

b. Input utilisation

9.9

0

2.9

002468

1012

Summer Winter

% o

f cul

tivat

ed a

rea

irri

gate

d

Seasonal irrigation

Availability of irrigation

Treatment (% of total land holding) Control (% of total land holding)

Treatment area

Control area

Total cultivated/cropped area (mean)

1.32 1.68

Category PP Chemicals Chemical Fertilizers Farm Yard Manure Yes (n) No (n) Yes (n) No (n) Yes (n) No (n)

Treatment 2 18 1 19 7 13 Control 1 10 0 10 6 4

95

There are negligible numbers of households who have reported usage of chemical fertilizers while more than 50% in both the treatment and control areas have used farmyard manure which indicates that the agricultural produces in the locality are organic.

Type of inputs Treatment Control

increased decreased same increased decreased same

Chemical fertilizers

100 (1) 0 0 100 (1) 0 0

PP chemicals 100 (1) 0 0 0 0 0 FYM 29 (2) 14 (1) 57 (4) 40 (2) 0 60 (8) Others 0 0 0 100 (1) 0 0

Although the trend as in the table above shows 100% increase in the usage of chemical fertilizers, the quantity is minimal and none in the community was using chemical fertilizers prior to the construction of the irrigation channel. It is also important to note that there is only one household each from the treatment and control area who reported to have used chemical fertilizer and one household in the treatment area who has used PP chemicals.

c. Social cohesion People say that conflicts and issues on common property like drinking water, irrigation water, farm road, grazing, NWFP are rare which indicates that the social cohesion in Gongbaleng and Zila villages is strong.

d. Enhanced time use Activities ‘treatment’ area ‘control’ area

Mostly men

Mostly women

Both Mostly men

Mostly women

Both

Household chores (cleaning, cooking, washing, tending to children, elderly etc.)

5 (1) 75 (15) 20 (4) 0 100 (11)

0

Water User Groups, Road User Groups, Community Forestry, FGs, & Coops

15 (3) 50 (10) 35 (7) 46 (5) 18 (2) 36 (4)

Agriculture farming 15 (3) 30 (6) 55 (11) 18 (2) 18 (2) 64 (7) Livestock 50 (10) 15 (3) 35 (7) 36 (4) 18 (2) 46 (5) NWFP collection 20 (4) 25 (5) 55 (11) 18 (2) 27 (3) 55 (6) Post-harvest & processing 15 (3) 40 (8) 45 (9) 0 64 (7) 36 (4) Marketing 20 (4) 60 (12) 20 (4) 18 (2) 55 (6) 27 (3) Guarding crops from wildlife 40 (8) 30 (6) 30 (6) 46 (5) 18 (2) 36 (4) Attending annual Social/domestic events

15 (3) 35 (7) 50 (10) 9 (1) 27 (3) 64 (7)

Meetings and survey interviews (geog, dzongkhag, Ministries)

20 (4) 55 (11) 25 (5) 36 (4) 9 (1) 55 (6)

96

In the control area, it is exclusively the women who engages in the household chores like cleaning, cooking, washing,tending to children and elderly as compared to three by fourth of the women in the treatment area.Although a third of both men and women in the control and treatment area are members of the Water User Groups, Road User Groups, Community Forestry, Farmers’ Groups and Cooperatives, there are more women in the treatment area and more men in the control area who engage in such activities. In collecting NWFP and attending annual social gathering and agriculture farming, both women and men are equally involved in both the treatment and control areas while relatively more men are involved in guarding crops and rearing livestock. In contrast, postharvest and processing and marketing are mostly handled by women in both the treatment and control area.While the meetings and survey interviews in control area are attended by both, it is mostly the women in the treatment area who takes care of such activities.

4. Conclusionand recommendations For now, irrigation predominantly caters to wetland and ignores the dry land altogether. Therefore, irrigation channel constructions which are in the pipeline may have to address this issue and cater to the dry land and orchards as well to ensure greater impact on the production and the income generated thereof which will in turn lead to the improved well-being of the community in receipt of such irrigation facilities.As mentioned in the RNR Sector 11th Five Year Plan document, constructing reservoirs at certain intervals along the irrigation channel could also enable the communities to store adequate water and use it at times of need.

Currently, the irrigation channels are not optimally utilized. As evident from the pictures on page number 5, irrigation channels are used mostly in summer and not so much in the winter. Creating awareness to use such facilities even in the winter to cultivate some other horticultural or cereal crops in winter even in the wetland could lead to increase in the domestic production.

Moreover, depending on the feasibility, improved water management techniquescould also be introduced through the Agriculture Extension Officials stationed at strategic locations tocomplement the existing irrigation channels and cater to orchards and dry lands.

However, even if robust irrigation channels and water management techniques are adopted, if the water sources dry up, the investment will be wasted. Therefore, awareness could be created about the importance of protecting the water source. The Divisional Forestry Offices in collaboration with the Dzongkhag Agriculture Sector could devise plans to protect the watershed and to carry out plantations around the water source.

5. Reference Ministry of Agriculture and Forests. (2014). RNR Sector Eleventh Five Year Plan 2013-2018. Thimphu, Bhutan: Author. Department of Agriculture, Ministry of Agriculture and Forests. (2012). National Irrigation Policy (Revised 2012). Thimphu, Bhutan: Author. National Statistics Bureau. (2014). Bhutan Poverty Assessment 2014. Thimphu: Bhutan: Author.