Resin Collectors 14 September, 2010 - What was once a quick source of cash income, farmers in eastern Bhutan, especially Trashigang, are slowly giving up the trade of tapping resin or turpentine from the chirpine trees that grow in abundance in the dzongkhag.
The business, which most farmers do during off farm season, is nearly four decades old, but with farmers finding alternate source of cash income and development activities reaching villages, many are quitting resin tapping. Almost every farmer spent time in the forest tapping resin in the past in Udzorong gewog, said a farmer. There are only three farmers, who continue to collect resin in the village today. There were more than 100 collectors in the gewog when the business started.
The three remaining resin collectors are all from Gengkhar village. Except for a few households of lay monks, everyone from the 38 households had been into the business once, according to the village tshogpa. Many Gengkharpas left the practice years ago.
Tashi resin and turpentine project office manager in Kurizampa, Mongar, Kuenzang Tshering, said the trend was also spreading across other dzongkhags since 2008. His office collects turpentine (resin) from Mongar, Trashigang and Lhuentse dzongkhags.
The project started with Indian labourers and later with Bhutanese farmers to tap the resin. “Initially we’d more than 600 collectors, but now there are only 70 registered collectors, and the number of people, who actually collect turpentine, are even fewer,” said Kuenzang.
The manager said villagers did not show interest, but was not sure of the reasons. Contractors also complained of difficulty in finding collectors. “Before people used to bring about 40 tins a month, but now the maximum we get is three tins,” the project manager said. Each tin weighs about 16 kg and a villager at present earns Nu 9 per kg of resin. Villagers received Nu 1.5 per kg of resin (turpentine) when the project started.
The project’s initial collection, when it began, was about 45,000 tins of turpentine annually. The collection had also dwindled to a maximum of 6,000 tins per annum in the recent years. Farmers from Trashigang had sold 240 tins of turpentine to the company in 2009. This year, there were only 18 tins until June.
Villagers said that tapping resin (turpentine) was a time consuming and arduous task, which, they said, was the main reason for farmers not showing interest anymore. “Where there was no road, transportation became very difficult,” said a villager.
Farmers said that, over the years, there were more developmental activities in the gewog where villagers could work as daily wage earner during off farm season. “The government’s scheme to form cooperatives to help villagers make income has also discouraged farmers from doing arduous work like collecting resin,” said an Udzorong villager.
Yonten, who stopped collecting resin a few years ago, said that the increase in the rates of resin was not proportionate to the increase in the wages for workers at construction sites or the prices of commodities in the shops. “We work hard but earn very less. It’s better to opt for other means to income,” the father of three said.
Many villagers said that they have left the trade because of religious reasons. “Lots of insects like flies and ants die sticking to the turpentine from the trees that we collect,” a former resin collector from Gengkhar, Yoga, said.
Kezang, Gengkhar village tshogpa, has been focusing on growing beans (rajma). Since a few years ago, the dzongkhag agriculture sector has identified rajma beans as a one-gewog-three-products (OGTP) and received a lot of attention. “We can earn much more cultivating beans now than collecting turpentine,” said Kezang, who had also left the trade more than ten years ago after collecting the oil for more than a dozen years.
There are no collectors left in Bepam village, another village in Udzorong gewog. Farmers here attribute the change to the increasing economic opportunities, coupled with regular and strict vigilance from the forestry officials.
“It’s only a matter of time before the three villagers also leave tapping,” said teh Gengkhar village tshogpa.