May 20: Unsustainable land use practices, floods and landslides are the prime factors threatening the livelihood of Bhutanese farmers. One such village threatened by land degradation is Salamjee in Dagana Dzongkhag.

Salamjee village is located under Tshangkha geog in Dagana it has 18 households. It is one of the remotest villages in the geog.

The land in Salamjee is characterized by gullies, exposed bedrock, and shallow top soil. The village has an average slope of 60 to 70 percent and rocks and boulders occupy almost 30 percent of the cultivable land.

The yield is therefore low and poverty is not unknown in this obscure village. To address this problem, a group known as the Salamjee Phazhing Zingchong Tshogpa has been established with support from UNDP and the renewable natural resource research centre in Bajo, Wangduephodrang.

The Tshogpa was established to build the community capacity to increase and sustain the productivity of the land. One of the components of the sustainable farmland management programme in the village is Citrus Orchard development on steep slopes. This is because citrus production provides sustainable farming option for steep farmlands.

Recently, farmers were given five days training on new citrus production technology like production of grafted citrus seedlings. Grafted citrus plants start bearing fruit in three years compared to seedlings which take more than 8-10 years to start giving fruit. Grafting helps the selection of suitable rootstocks for different soil types and also provides resistance to pests and disease.