Farm Action Toolkit Reveals Two Decades of Cropland Changes in Mountainous Bhutan for Sustainability

Farm Action Toolkit Reveals Two Decades of Cropland Changes in Mountainous Bhutan for Sustainability | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Farm Action Toolkit Reveals Two Decades of Cropland Changes in Mountainous Bhutan for Sustainability Aparna R. Phalke, Sarah E. Cox, Ashutosh Limaye, Rinchen Dorji, and 8 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-7068731/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Bhutan’s Five-Year Strategic Plan (FYP) is the country’s primary instrument for guiding national development, resource allocation, and policy interventions. To track progress towards the central goals of the FYP regarding food security and self-sufficiency, Bhutan needs spatiotemporally explicit and accurate data on agricultural land use. However, cropland monitoring in Bhutan is challenging because only ~7% of its landmass is arable and over 80% of croplands are in rugged, high-elevation terrain. This study fills this gap in Bhutan’s agricultural data monitoring with the Farm Action Toolkit (FAcT), an AI-enabled, remote sensing-based service that maps cropland and paddy area dynamics from 2002 to 2024, providing first national, comprehensive, validated, field-scale cropland dataset. FAcT demonstrated strong performance for both cropland and paddy extent classifications with an average overall accuracy ranging from 87% to 92% and R² values between 0.75 and 0.85 compared to government estimates over two decades. With FAcT, Bhutan can evaluate both the historic and ongoing impacts of FYP interventions, offering a robust, evidence-based framework for agricultural support policy analysis. For example, FAcT reveals a 20% increase in cropland area between 2002 and 2024, consistent with climate-resilient agriculture related investments under the 9 th ,10 th ,11 th FYPs. Meanwhile, 66% of lost cropland area post-2018 reverted to forest, reflecting the 12th FYP’s conservation priorities. During the same period, net primary productivity (NPP) declined by 2%, and per-capita cropland and paddy areas fell by 16% and 22% respectively, underscoring demographic pressure and land-use competition. FAcT outputs are now guiding the implementation of 13th FYP, which emphasizes commercial agriculture, sustainability, and equity. Notably, FAcT-derived maps could extend subsidies and tax benefits to additional farmers, particularly those not reached by prior survey-based systems. The co-development approach adopted in this study enhanced scientific methodology and facilitated institutional uptake, enabling operational use by national stakeholders. All code and datasets are openly available at https://zenodo.org/records/15621464 , offering a scalable tool for strengthening food system resilience, sustainable land management, and evidence-based decision-making in smallholder, high-elevation, and data-scarce contexts. The findings contribute directly to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2, 11, and 15, advancing sustainable agriculture and climate resilience in mountainous regions. Earth and environmental sciences/Climate sciences Biological sciences/Ecology Earth and environmental sciences/Ecology Earth and environmental sciences/Environmental sciences Earth and environmental sciences/Environmental social sciences Paddy dynamics Remote sensing Mountain agriculture Sustainable land management Food security Change detection AI Bhutan Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-7068731","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":483825968,"identity":"b5f18f9b-70fd-4180-a713-5c2e4d2783ed","order_by":0,"name":"Aparna R. 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To track progress towards the central goals of the FYP regarding food security and self-sufficiency, Bhutan needs spatiotemporally explicit and accurate data on agricultural land use. However, cropland monitoring in Bhutan is challenging because only ~7% of its landmass is arable and over 80% of croplands are in rugged, high-elevation terrain. This study fills this gap in Bhutan’s agricultural data monitoring with the Farm Action Toolkit (FAcT), an AI-enabled, remote sensing-based service that maps cropland and paddy area dynamics from 2002 to 2024, providing first national, comprehensive, validated, field-scale cropland dataset. FAcT demonstrated strong performance for both cropland and paddy extent classifications with an average overall accuracy ranging from 87% to 92% and R² values between 0.75 and 0.85 compared to government estimates over two decades. With FAcT, Bhutan can evaluate both the historic and ongoing impacts of FYP interventions, offering a robust, evidence-based framework for agricultural support policy analysis. For example, FAcT reveals a 20% increase in cropland area between 2002 and 2024, consistent with climate-resilient agriculture related investments under the 9\u003csup\u003eth\u003c/sup\u003e,10\u003csup\u003eth\u003c/sup\u003e,11\u003csup\u003eth\u003c/sup\u003e FYPs. Meanwhile, 66% of lost cropland area post-2018 reverted to forest, reflecting the 12th FYP’s conservation priorities. During the same period, net primary productivity (NPP) declined by 2%, and per-capita cropland and paddy areas fell by 16% and 22% respectively, underscoring demographic pressure and land-use competition. FAcT outputs are now guiding the implementation of 13th FYP, which emphasizes commercial agriculture, sustainability, and equity. Notably, FAcT-derived maps could extend subsidies and tax benefits to additional farmers, particularly those not reached by prior survey-based systems. The co-development approach adopted in this study enhanced scientific methodology and facilitated institutional uptake, enabling operational use by national stakeholders. All code and datasets are openly available at \u003ca href=\"https://zenodo.org/records/15621464\"\u003ehttps://zenodo.org/records/15621464\u003c/a\u003e, offering a scalable tool for strengthening food system resilience, sustainable land management, and evidence-based decision-making in smallholder, high-elevation, and data-scarce contexts. The findings contribute directly to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2, 11, and 15, advancing sustainable agriculture and climate resilience in mountainous regions.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"Farm Action Toolkit Reveals Two Decades of Cropland Changes in Mountainous Bhutan for Sustainability","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2025-07-15 13:54:34","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-7068731/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"d3b60685-7d44-42e6-946b-3d963a584121","owner":[],"postedDate":"July 15th, 2025","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"posted","subjectAreas":[{"id":51373056,"name":"Earth and environmental sciences/Climate sciences"},{"id":51373057,"name":"Biological sciences/Ecology"},{"id":51373058,"name":"Earth and environmental sciences/Ecology"},{"id":51373059,"name":"Earth and environmental sciences/Environmental sciences"},{"id":51373060,"name":"Earth and environmental sciences/Environmental social sciences"}],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2025-07-23T01:08:29+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2025-07-15 13:54:34","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-7068731","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-7068731","identity":"rs-7068731","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"XKTyCvWXoU3ODBz1xrDgd","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}