Road building in Bhutan © Piet van der Poel

Bhutan’s famed capacity for insulating its culture and traditions no longer extends to food sufficiency. The World Food Programme estimates that one third of the population is food insecure. A similar proportion of the country’s staple cereal requirement is imported and the latest official poverty figures do not take account of any hardship arising from the 2008 spiral in world food prices. Concern will focus on evidence that malnutrition amongst the population at large was already increasing by 2007, albeit from a low level.

Poor agricultural yields are the inevitable consequence of a profile of isolated small under-capitalised farms, vulnerable to extremes of weather, soil erosion and pests. Development plans aim to reach out to these rural communities with new roads and electricity supplies.

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