Bhutan is an agricultural country. Farming is their chief industry. The majority of people in Bhutan make their livelihood from agriculture. That is far more true for women in Bhutan. Bhutan does not, however, have very many large and flat valleys where the farming would be relatively easy. Most of Bhutan is mountainous. And these are the Himalayan Mountains so they are incredibly steep.

Farming in the Himalayas is somewhat of a challenge. The Bhutanese, however, seem to have it well established. I took the first photo to show the challenge of the mountains and how it must be terraced on the steep hillsides. The second photo is the same area, just a much more zoomed in photo.

You also need to understand that I didn’t see much in the way of sophisticated farm equipment. For that matter, I didn’t see any earth-moving equipment but they moved a lot of earth to make those terraces. You can see a closer look at some other fields in the next photo and can notice the size and shape of the fields. There are two Bhutanese women harvesting rice by hand right in the center of the next photo and a close-up photo of them in the following photo.

The last photo is another farm and offers a good perspective on the fields shapes. The red on top of the house in the last photo is chili peppers being dried. The overwhelming majority of houses in Bhutan have chili peppers on the roof being dried. We were served chilies and cheese at almost every lunch and dinner and most dishes had chilies in them.