Paper Title
Drivers and Constraints of Conversion to Organic Farming in The Kingdom of Bhutan
Abstract
Organic Farming is one of the several approaches towards environmental conservation and aims to increase agriculture production and household income for small scale farmers to enable them to come out of poverty and improve livelihood. The objective is to identify the major drivers and constraints and provide policy recommendation to the government and other relevant agency. A survey data of 146 respondents were collected from Gasa district of Bhutan. The analysis includes the use of descriptive statistics and the study recognize the drivers and constraints in organic practices according to the ranked order of importance by the farmers. The variables included in the questionnaire were measured using five point Liker scale. The result suggests that environmental awareness, health benefit, economic benefit and education and employment benefits are the predominant drivers for organic production. Constraints experienced by the farmers includes low productivity, market aspects, education and research aspects and economic and financial aspects. To promote organic farming, the Bhutanese government should consider to overcome barriers through investment in research, capacity building, market intensification, policy support, information and awareness and formation of groups and cooperatives.
Keywords: Bhutan, Constraints, Drivers and Organic Farming