𝟑𝟏 𝐀𝐮𝐠𝐮𝐬𝐭, 𝐘𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐠: The National Centre for Organic Agriculture (NCOA) organized a day long organic day for the Delegates of Asian Food and Agriculture Cooperation Initiatives (AFACI) who have come to Bhutan to attend the 6th AFACI General Assembly held on 29th August, 2022 in Thimphu. The day was organized to showcase the organic technologies which were researched and found promising. Various organic products from the Centre, private enterprises and the farmers’ Groups and Cooperatives from various Dzongkhags were displayed in an exhibition mode. The display included different tomato lines, apples, vegetables (beans, chili, onion) and bio-inputs for both soil fertility and plant protection technologies. Moreover, some processed products such as potato chips, biscuits, candies, honey, turmeric powder, etc. which was processed using organic raw materials were displayed.
Quinoa Thub (porridge) and Quinoa dresi (butter fried rice) were also served. After the completion of product display, the visitors were escorted for field visit to introduce them to the research and production activities put through by the Centre to improve and encourage organic agriculture in Bhutan.
The program was attended by 23 officials of AFACI from 10 member countries and the officials from Department of Agriculture, Ministry of Agriculture and Forests. The day was aimed to promote organic agriculture and enhance collaboration and partnership with the AFACI for future endeavor.
NCOA received the fund support from AFACI in 2019 to focus on tomato variety development. Under this initiative, a total of 50 accessions of tomato from WorldVeg Centre was received and it was evaluated to screen the lines for disease resistance. Currently, through approach of Participatory Varietal Selection (PVS) the farmers from the neighboring places were invited to select the best tomato lines for release. NCOA is going to propose 3 tomato lines to the next Variety Release Committee (VRC) of the Department of Agriculture.
Bhutan was amongst the 10 AFACI member countries who received the 2021 Outstanding Countries Winners
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