The Ministry of Agriculture and Forests (MoAF) has asked the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for support to start a “chiwog grant assistance for farm mechanization and services” project
The project aims to provide 1,450 power tillers at the chiwog level. The Programme Director of Agriculture Machinery Centre, Karma Thinley, said the power tillers will be delivered by 2017.
To have a successful implementation of the project, a survey team, led by Dr Kunihiro Tokida, is in Bhutan for a weeklong stay on March 9.
In the ongoing discussion for project implementation, the survey team met with the Secretary,MoAF, Tenzin Dhendup and ministry’s senior officials on March 11.
The specific of the project and feasible structure for effective use of power tillers, scale and delivery schedule and ownership of grant were key issues discussed in the meeting.
As proposed by a team of Bhutanese, the meeting talked on a plan to utilize power tillers in hiring services after verifying the service feasibility structure through the ones delivered under KRII, and submit an interim report by end of July 2015.
As per the release from MoAF, the meeting agreed on the strengthening the farm mechanization project (phase II), and to provide advice during verification of the said hiring structure. In addition, the meeting agreed to remove chiwog from the title to generalize the project.
The meeting resulted in signing of the ‘minutes of meeting’, highlighting the initial agreements between two parties, between the MoAF Secretary and Dr Kunihiro Tokida..