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Bhutanese community gardens are urban and peri-urban agricultural projects created by resettled Bhutanese refugees in cities across the United States, Canada, Australia, and other resettlement countries. These gardens reflect the deep agrarian roots of the Lhotshampa community, the majority of whom were subsistence farmers in the subtropical foothills of southern Bhutan before their displacement in the early 1990s. In resettlement, community gardens have emerged as multifunctional spaces that serve purposes ranging from food production and cultural preservation to mental health support and intergenerational knowledge transfer.

The phenomenon of Bhutanese community gardening has attracted attention from researchers, urban agriculture advocates, resettlement agencies, and public health professionals, who have recognised these projects as models of refugee-led community development and food sovereignty.

Agricultural Roots

The Lhotshampa of southern Bhutan were predominantly farming communities. The subtropical valleys and foothills of districts such as Samtse, Chukha, Sarpang, Tsirang, and Dagana supported the cultivation of rice, maize, millet, mustard, cardamom, ginger, oranges, and a wide variety of vegetables and legumes. Farming was not merely an economic activity but a way of life intimately connected to cultural identity, seasonal rituals, and family structures. Land ownership was central to social standing and household security in southern Bhutanese society.

The loss of land was among the most devastating consequences of displacement. When Lhotshampa were expelled from Bhutan in the early 1990s, they lost not only their homes but their farms, orchards, and the agricultural landscapes that had sustained their communities for generations. In the refugee camps in Nepal, opportunities for farming were extremely limited, though some refugees cultivated small kitchen gardens within or near camp boundaries. Resettlement in Western countries — typically in urban or suburban settings — presented further challenges, as former farmers found themselves in apartment complexes and rental housing with little or no access to cultivable land.

Development of Community Gardens

Bhutanese community gardens began appearing in resettlement cities within a few years of the first major waves of refugee arrival in the late 2000s and early 2010s. In many cases, they were initiated by community members themselves, who sought out available land — vacant lots, church properties, public park land, or plots offered by community garden organisations — and began cultivating crops familiar from their homeland. In other cases, resettlement agencies, nonprofits, or local governments facilitated garden establishment by providing land access, startup supplies, and organisational support.

Notable Bhutanese community garden projects have been established in cities with significant Bhutanese populations, including:

Columbus and Akron, Ohio: Ohio, home to the largest concentration of resettled Bhutanese refugees in the United States, has seen numerous community garden initiatives. Organisations such as the International Rescue Committee (IRC), local food banks, and community land trusts have partnered with Bhutanese gardeners to establish plots across the metro areas.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Bhutanese gardeners have been active participants in Pittsburgh's community garden network, cultivating traditional crops in neighbourhoods where refugees have settled.
Burlington, Vermont: The Association of Africans Living in Vermont (AALV) and other organisations have supported Bhutanese community farming projects in the Burlington area, where refugees have adapted subtropical crop knowledge to Vermont's shorter growing season.
Boise, Idaho: The Global Gardens program and similar initiatives have provided land and resources for Bhutanese refugee farmers in the Boise area.
Atlanta, Georgia; Syracuse, New York; Houston, Texas: Similar projects have developed in these and other resettlement cities.

Crops and Agricultural Knowledge

Bhutanese community gardeners cultivate a distinctive mix of crops that reflects their South Asian agricultural heritage. Common crops include varieties of mustard greens (rayo saag), bitter gourd (tite karela), bottle gourd (lauka), ridge gourd (pate ghiraula), chayote squash (iskus), various hot peppers, tomatoes, beans, pumpkins, maize, and leafy greens. Gardeners often source seeds through informal networks, bringing varieties from Nepal or obtaining them from other Bhutanese gardeners in different resettlement cities. These seed-sharing networks represent an informal but significant system of agrobiodiversity preservation.

The agricultural knowledge that Bhutanese gardeners bring to community gardens is extensive and sophisticated. It includes understanding of crop rotation, companion planting, organic pest management, soil fertility practices, and the cultivation requirements of specific South Asian crops. This knowledge, transmitted orally across generations, is itself a form of cultural heritage. Community gardens provide a context in which it can be practised, valued, and passed to younger members of the community.

Food Sovereignty and Nutrition

Community gardens contribute directly to the food sovereignty and nutritional well-being of Bhutanese refugee families. Many traditional Bhutanese and Nepali vegetables are difficult to find or expensive in American, Canadian, or Australian grocery stores. By growing their own produce, families gain access to culturally appropriate foods that are integral to their traditional diet. This is particularly important for older community members, for whom familiar foods carry deep emotional and cultural significance and for whom adaptation to Western diets has often been difficult.

Public health researchers have noted that community garden participation is associated with higher vegetable consumption, improved dietary diversity, and better self-reported health outcomes among Bhutanese refugee families. Garden-produced food also supplements household budgets in communities where many families face economic pressures related to low-wage employment, high housing costs, and limited access to affordable culturally appropriate foods.

Social and Therapeutic Functions

Beyond food production, Bhutanese community gardens serve as social spaces that help counteract the isolation and fragmentation that often accompany refugee resettlement. Working in a garden alongside other community members recreates something of the communal agricultural labour that characterised village life in southern Bhutan. For elderly refugees in particular — many of whom experience loneliness, language barriers, and a sense of purposelessness in urban resettlement settings — gardening provides meaningful activity, social interaction, and a connection to the land that is both familiar and healing.

Mental health professionals working with the Bhutanese refugee community have recognised gardening as a form of therapeutic engagement. Gardening, with its rhythms, outdoor physical activity, social interaction, and connection to cultural identity, has been incorporated into some community-based mental health support programmes.

Intergenerational Knowledge Transfer

Community gardens serve as sites of intergenerational connection, where elders share agricultural skills, plant knowledge, cooking traditions, and stories with younger family members. For children and teenagers raised in urban American or Australian environments, the garden provides a tangible link to the agrarian world their parents and grandparents inhabited in Bhutan. This transfer of knowledge encompasses not only practical agricultural skills but also cultural values related to the land, the seasons, and the role of food in community life.

Challenges

Bhutanese community gardens face challenges common to urban agriculture projects serving refugee and immigrant communities: insecure land tenure (many gardens occupy borrowed or temporarily allocated land), limited access to water and infrastructure, climate differences from the subtropical environments where gardeners acquired their skills, transportation barriers for gardeners who do not drive, and the ongoing challenge of sustaining gardens as a volunteer activity in communities where members work long hours in low-wage employment.

Significance

Bhutanese community gardens represent one of the most tangible and visible expressions of cultural continuity in the diaspora. They demonstrate the community's resourcefulness in adapting ancestral knowledge to new environments and its determination to maintain connections to the land and to food traditions that are central to Lhotshampa identity. As both practical food-production projects and spaces of cultural, social, and therapeutic significance, they illustrate the multidimensional ways in which displaced communities rebuild meaningful lives after resettlement.

References

Hartwig, Kari A., and Megan A. Mason. "Community Gardens for Refugee and Immigrant Communities as a Health Promotion Approach." Journal of Community Health, 2016.
Benson, G. Odessa, and others. "Resettlement Experiences of Bhutanese Refugees." Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, 2012.
Cultural Orientation Resource Center. "Bhutanese Refugees in the United States." https://coresourceexchange.org/
Coughlan, Reed, and Judith Owens-Manley. Bosnian Refugees in America: New Communities, New Cultures. Springer, 2006. (Comparative framework.)

Bhutanese Community Gardens