Like on every weekend I was at the
vegetable market picking some vegetables for the next one week and as always I
was mostly getting my hands on some green ones. My attention was drawn by
nicely packed green beans which I thought would not be growing anywhere in
Bhutan in this peak winter and I know they have not been given the travel
permit yet to show up in Bhutan. I asked
if these were from Bhutan. “Yes”, the seller said, “from Tsirang” with some
confidence. ‘Beans grows in Tsirang at this time of the year?’ I asked. With some crafty smile she added, “May be", "that
is what they (meaning supplier) told us.” Getting a bit more bold now she
added, “Some people also say it is from Dadhghari (Indian side of the border), but
most importantly we are allowed to sell this.” ‘Of course yes, as long as no
authority says anything, who am I, a small consumer, to question you’! I moved
on to find that almost every counter had these green packages getting sold like
hot cakes at a price that is three times of what it used to be two year ago.
Perhaps about 20 months now, the
most sought after Indian soil grown green chillies had faced ban from our Bhutan
Agriculture and Food Regulatory Authority (BAFRA), a relatively new wing of our
governance that is also often feared by our small scale retailers, hotels and other
vendors. The decision to ban the import of these foreign green chillies along
with some of their milder brethren like beans and cauliflower has come into
effect following a report on the pesticide residue that was found to be beyond
the WHO-standard acceptable limits, tested in laboratories in Thailand and
India. Very welcome and a fare decision indeed! Since then this body can only
tell how many tons of these essential vegetable varieties got confiscated and
buried on their way to Thimphu and other interior towns from the close by areas
in North Bengal and Assam, India, causing huge financial loss to the agents and
vendors doing brisk business trying to sell these ‘unhealthy stuff’. Once again a well-deserved penalty on these
lawbreakers for playing with the health of innocent Bhutanese consumers (expats
working in Bhutan included).
What is something that I am unable
to understand, however is, why are a number of brethren of the above products
still making their presence on our dining table? For instance the soft and
succulent tomatoes of all shapes and sizes, our favourite salad maker cucumber,
cabbage and many more are awarded visa gratis till date? How is anyone to
believe that the insecticide is only sprayed on chillies and beans and not on
their counterparts when these are grown by same farmers and in same places?
Above all is the BAFRA continuously checking the pesticide level in all the
vegetable imported or was it just one time event? As consumers, is their some
kind of right to information about something as important as our food? What wonders me most is by increased abundance of this new found
alternative, the red chilly in the
market. The local chilly production
being seasonal and often inadequate to quench the chilly thirst of ‘we the
Bhutanese’, tons of dried red Indian chillies have found their easy way to our
vegetable markets. I am sure the farmers down below are now asked by the
suppliers to keep them in the field till they mature and become red. In the process, this would not obviously be without pouring more pesticides, and also not to mention the hygiene of the places they lay to dry them. Most
importantly, what happens to that deadly poison that it had received throughout
its prolonged life? It is all a mystery and perhaps must be a grave concern for
everyone devouring this form of chillies in lieu of the scarce green ones. Personally
I am not a great fan of chilly (thanks to my GERDy stomach), but just their
conspicuous and somewhat dubious presence in doubled and tripled quantity in
the dishes made for the Bhutanese appetite makes me very worried. By the way, adding to my doubt of their origin but to the delight of the chilly lovers, some
small varieties of green chillies in small packages are seen in plenty most
recently, also claiming to be Bhutan- grown!!
Having said that I hope that we could increase vegetable production (chillies included) in the country. In fact I had hoped that the ban had come as a blessing in disguise for triggering vegetable sufficiency in the country. I firmly believe that even as a small country we have favourable altitudinal and climatic variations for all kinds of vegetable cultivation throughout the year.
Talking about growing more
vegetable, I remember never seeing onions and not even much potatoes when I was growing
up back in my remote village in late 60s and early 70’s. The more recent
immigrants such as cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli was not even heard of.
However we grew enough of indigenous and endemic vegetables in our backyards such
as pumpkin, large leafy green lettuce, radish, varieties of beans, squash and
few more miscellaneous ones. We also relished the seasonal varieties of wild
stuff such as fern shoots, bamboo shoots and mushrooms. Never felt any
vegetable was scarce and of course no pesticide or organic fertilizer had to be
ever used. In last 50 years our agriculture service managed to add few more exotic ones but
most of these came with poor resistance to pests and therefore not very popular
with the vegetable growers. But with the affordability and change in our food
habits, we are yearning for varieties from across the boarders that are often kept alive by deadly
pesticides.
I hope and wish that there is
better monitoring on the vegetable import, quicker actions from the Ministry of
Agriculture to grow vegetables in the country throughout the year and make very
concrete moves towards vegetable sufficiency just as we seem to have achieved
in poultry. The next government in the making may be fully convinced that there
will be absolutely no resistance from any quarters for growing more varieties
of vegetables and promoting self-sufficiency in this one genre of agricultural
products.
