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Vision To become a "Centre of Excellence for Rural Development Services." Mission To provide higher education and generate competent extension professionals capable of providing quality services for rural development at the grassroots level. History of CNR Farmers in Bhutan live and work under diverse social, economic, political and agro-ecological conditions. Within the limitation imposed by the difficult natural terrain, harsh climatic conditions and scarce land and water resources, they have evolved a farming system that has not only sustained past generations but also conserved the resource base for future generations. This traditional farming systems relied on the inter-linkages and symbiotic relationship between agriculture, livestock and forests. Unfortunately, with the start of the planned development, this integrated nature of farming has not been adequately addressed and rural development was promoted through separate departments of agriculture, animal husbandry and forestry. Each of these departments pursued its own narrowly defined goals and objectives, often in conflicts with one another and without proper coordination. Even training of staff has been conducted by separate training institute namely National Agriculture Training Institute at Paro, Royal Veterinary Institute at Serbithang and Bhutan Forestry Institute at Taba. In the late 1980s, the Ministry of Agriculture, reviewed the then existing RNR sector development policy and strategy. The outcome was a new RNR policy and strategy that recognises the interdependence of agriculture, livestock and forestry and the need for an integrated approach to pursue the Ministry’s economic development and nature conservation programmes. In addition to the many institutional changes initiated towards this direction, the integration of staff training was initiated through the establishment of the Natural Resources Traning Institute (NRTI), now known as the College of Natural Resources (CNR). Establishment of CNR The CNR (formerly NRTI) was established with technical and financial assistance from the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC) and Helvetas, a Swiss Association for International Cooperation. A two-year project agreement was signed between the RGOB and the SDC/Helvetas, Switzerland, on 13 April 1985 to undertake the feasibility study of developing the institute. On 17 July 1989, a decision was taken to construct the CNR at Lobesa as a SDC/Helvetas assisted project. The Project was executed under two sub-projects namely Construction Project (BH-20) and Training Project (BH-30). The total financial outlay was Nu. 119.2 million. As envisaged in the project document, RGoB contribution was 11% for the construction project and 31% for training project. The work on construction started since 1989 and in 1992 CNR became functional and started its course for the first batch of diploma trainees who finally graduated in 1995. Although the CNR was inaugurated and formally handed over to RGoB on 11 November 1994, construction activities continued till 1996 when one of the last staff quarters was completed.
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