Duenchukha, part of Dorokha Dungkhag, is one of the remotest gewogs, located to the north-east of Samtse Dzongkhag. The gewog is bounded to the north by Haa Dzongkhag, to the east by Chukha Dzongkhag, to the west by Dungtoe Gewog, and to the south by Dophuchen gewog. It has an area of 102.15 square kilometers. The Gewog has 446 standing households with 3721 people (male: 1918 and female: 1803).
Farmers in Denchukha primarily cultivate paddy with traditional local white rice. Denchukha now has a total of 453.9 acres of wet land. Denchukha's annual rice harvest is estimated to be around 330 metric tons. Aside from rice, Denchukha farmers have a long tradition of growing lentils in terraces alongside paddy. Every year, Denchukha farmers harvest approximately 15 metric tons of lentils.
Similarly, farmers in this region continue to grow maize, buckwheat, wheat, mustard, and a variety of legumes, the most popular of which is Rajma beans.
The annual maize harvest is 129 metric tons, while the annual buckwheat harvest is 60 metric tons, wheat harvest is 14 metric tons, mustard harvest is 12 metric tons, and rajma beans harvest is 30 metric tons. The majority of Denchukha farmers practice mixed farming, with dairy being the mainstay of every household. 431 of the 446 households keep cattle, totalling around 3200 head. Most farmers raise local cattle that produce a maximum of 3 litres of milk per day; currently, local cattle account for 62.5% of total animals, which is 2000 out of 3200 cattle.
Denchukha still practices traditional cattle management, with approximately 60% of farmers allowing their cattle to graze freely in the forest all day, and most farmers collecting only the milking cows in the evening, leaving the rest to graze freely in the forest. The farmers also have a good practice of rearing honeybees either in improved or local hives; Denchukha harvests around 1000 kilos of local honey each year. The Gewog is also well-known in the Dzongkhag for its Trigona honey production.
Denchukha gewog is also rich in forest coverage with more than 75% subtropical broad-leaved forest, including Walnut, Hazelnut, Mulberry, and other trees. The Gewog have Perennial streams dividing each village from the next, and the Toorsa River runs along the bottom of the gewog, where Copper Mahseer, Chocolate Mahseer, and Golden Mahseer to be found.
The gewog is clearly defined and has numerous well-known wild creatures and birds, including Red Panda, Barking Deer, Sambar Deer, Asiatic Golden Cat, Wild Dog, and Bear, among many others, and birds like Eagle, Hornbill, Khalij Peasant, Dove, Crow, Myna, and etc. With this, climate change is a pressing issue in today's economy, and dairy development is viewed as one sector contributing to climate change via methane gas emissions from animal waste. Furthermore, in rural communities like Denchukha, households raise high numbers of low-producing local animals and allow them to graze freely in the forest, putting direct pressure on the environment, like deforestation and degradation by the animals in sub-tropical forest over the entire months of the years.
This project aims to address both issues by integrating bio-gas plants to reduce methane gas emissions into the environment and use them as a cooking fuel. Looking at the current situation in Denchukha Gewog, less than 5% of households have LPG gas, despite the fact that the Gewog is in top list of functional Biogas plants in Dzongkhag with 138 Bio-Gas plants built, where the remaining 293 households still rely on tipper loads of firewood each year, in addition to electricity, which is mostly used for lighting and less often for cooking. Given that each of the 138 bio-gas plants uses 40 kilograms of cow dung per day, it is heartening to note that we still have a long way to go in our efforts to reduce the amount of methane produced by dairy cows in Denchukha.
Furthermore, the project will begin the development of animal fodder through the planting of fodder trees like Ficus roxburghii, Ficus nemoralis, Brassaiopsis hainla, etc? and pasture land establishment with permanent seed like Ruzi, Stylo and Mollasses and fodder slips like Napier in respective land, as well as start stall feeding of animals. The project also aims to develop Bio-Blocks stick from Bio-gas outlets and use them in cooking animal porridge, thereby reducing fire wood extraction.