Gross Domestic Happiness
Living Richer by Living Better…
Back in 1971 the tiny and remote Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan rejected Gross Domestic Product as the only way to measure progress. It championed a new approach to development which measures prosperity by Gross Domestic Happiness and the spiritual, physical, social and environmental health of the citizens and the natural environment.
This belief that wellbeing should take preference over material growth has remained a global oddity. Now, in a world beset by collapsing financial systems, gross inequity and wide-scale environmental destruction, this tiny Buddhist state’s approach is attracting a lot of interest.
Bhutan’s principles have been set in policy through the gross national happiness index, based on equitable social development, cultural preservation, conservation of the environment and promotion of good governance.
“It’s easy to mine the land and fish the seas and get rich,” says Thakur Singh Powdyel, Bhutan’s minister of education, who has become one of the most eloquent spokespeople for GNH. “Yet we believe you cannot have a prosperous nation in the long run that does not conserve its natural environment or take care of the wellbeing of its people, which is being borne out by what is happening to the outside world.”
And now, Bhutan has taken the historic and inspirational step of becoming the world’s first 100 percent organic nation!
With a population of 700,000 people, Bhutan is known as a country of farmers .they didn’t think they could feed a large population on organic crops, they wouldn’t declare organic farming to be the best form of agriculture for their country with a comprehensive plan to make the change.
Last month the Minister told his government he is developing a National Organic Policy because the country’s farmers are increasingly convinced that “by working in harmony with nature, they can help sustain the flow of nature’s bounties.”
As the new all-organic program spreads, and farmers in Bhutan are trained in new methods that will help them grow organic and become closer to self-sufficiency, we might see ‘made in Bhutan’ more often as a welcome change to the frankenfoods being offered by companies in our own country.
With current and past research finding that GMOs lead to tumours in rats, severe stomach inflammation in pigs, and increased disease rates, it’s more important than ever to spread to the word on the importance of going organic and shifting to sustainable, safe farm practices. It is you who will ignite change!
Grow Local & Grow Organic…
Stephanie Kelley
“If we are looking for insurance against want and oppression, we will find it only in our neighbors’ prosperity and goodwill and, beyond that, in the good health of our worldly places, our homelands. If we were sincerely looking for a place of safety, for real security and success, then we would begin to turn to our communities – and not the communities simply of our human neighbors but also of the water, earth, and air, the plants and animals, all the creatures with whom our local life is shared.
Wendell Berry
