Sangay Rinchen, who is commonly known as ‘Farmer Sangay, talks to Magazine about his venture into entrepreneurship, commercial farming, the business from the farm, and other future plans.
He said he is a farmer by occupation & by his field of study. “I have ventured into farming due to my love for nature and joy of living in harmony with nature. It was around early 2011 when I got started, the idea was much simpler. I ventured into the sector as a farmer wanting to live a simple life and grow things that I need to survive to live,” Sangay said, adding that after being in the agriculture sector for some years, he learned the realities of the difficulties, challenges, and opportunities that smallholding family farms like ours offer to modern times.
In addition, he shared that there were many projects he had been part of in his initial 8 years of journey. Including a potato chips project that was an attempt to create a local value chain with raw material production to professional brands, a community forest value chain project that supplies locally produced densified wooden fuel cookies/chips along with smokeless stoves for use in schools, integrated piggery, and fishery project.
“This phase of my engagements was mostly trials, research, and prototyping of potential local products,” he said, adding that there were several other activities in that he got the opportunity to take part such as the large quantity of potato sourcing, spices, and other youth lead agriculture projects around the country.
When asked about some of the biggest challenges he has faced as an entrepreneur, and how he overcome them, Sangay explained the top 5 biggest challenges, he has come to encounter in his agriculture sector are mostly traditional problems of an agrarian society.
He divulged about a generational gap, “the sector is led by traditional farmers and not much of modern farmers at the moment. Secondly, small land holding and low volume production. “All the current problems of market, brand, and lack of investment come due to this situation.”
He added that human-wildlife conflicts are a major issue and lack of innovation (not much appropriate technology & science-driven practices in the sector) and climate change.
In addition, he said there is a steady shift in weather patterns, rainfall, and change in biodiversity such as vegetation & pests, and diseases demanding farmers to shift their practices and consciousness. It will only continue to pose greater challenges to the sector in the future.
“So far, most of the traditional problems of the current situation of farmers have not affected me and my family. In fact, increasing pressure from changing times and factors (all the above challenges) have given me the opportunity to rethink how small holding family farms like mine can exist and indeed evolve into the future,” he said
Indeed, his family had also enjoyed some of the new responses they have made on the farm in the last few years such as growing high-value herbal mushrooms such as a Reishi Lingzhi and incomes from tourists visiting the family and land.
“Personally, my constant motivation comes from thinking of potential solutions such as technology innovation, writing and learning about traditional wisdom and practices from my fellow farmers, and of course, continuing to learn and explore my virtual space such as social media and other emerging science,’ he said.
However, since the beginning of this year 2023, he took a role as an organizer of his farm and operated on an agile and flow timeline. His priority is to organize work around the transformation of his traditional family farm to a more organized smart family farm for the 21st century.
“In doing that, I am free to think, free to travel, and free to experiment with anything that’s in the space of possibilities. My team members such as my mother, my sister, and my brother-in-law take care of the farm. Some things need my intervention and I am making the time to meet them as of now,” he shared.
He added that he loves to research and experiment, “I do things that are doable at the beginning and then would determine the highest potential of projects through the use of technology and other disruptive methods of doing it.”
“The ultimate quest of my life is to be a small service or contribution to making rural lives easy and bringing out the beauty that’s innate to living in harmony with nature and finding peace in one’s life.”
To aspiring young entrepreneurs, Sangay shared, “Journey of my life as an entrepreneur in my life had been more like self-discovery. It can be profound and silly at the same time. I wish you all a great journey ahead and hope to meet many of you who had decided to take a path on this space at a great joyous time of your life.”
However, he shared that entrepreneurship will be a space driven by creativity, art, and innovations. It will have less influenced by money but more induced by the economy of newer thoughts such as circular economic thoughts, ecological thoughts, societal well-being, health, and happiness of all beings.
“An idea such as GNH will be an inspiration for both future and current entrepreneurs in making our Bhutanese trend unique to stand out and embrace the time-tested models as a Brand Bhutan showcasing our ideas of society in different sectors,” he said, adding those spaces of our lives as a collective story through our entrepreneurship and vocation as Bhutanese.
