When urbanization spreads its wings, villagers thus overshadowed find it difficult to get their heads around developments. A recent incident, where a group of farmers from south Thimphu met to discuss the Thimphu city corporation's rule, which bans rearing livestock in the capital city's jurisdiction, bears witness to the growing conflict between planners and farmers. On Monday, after a farmer from Tshalimarphey found her two missing cows in the, as she put it, "central jail for cattle' in lower Mothithang, farmers appealed to the city to bend the rule. According to the cattle owner, she was charged Nu 5,000 each for her cows for them to be released. Farmers are not happy about the rule, which they claim is too early to implement. "Our village has not become that busy or beautiful a city that cattle can disrupt life,' she said. "If it becomes like proper Thimphu, no doubt, we will adhere to the rules.' Farmers have already resisted the rule calling it irrational. They say that it has been almost five years since TCC stopped their cultivation because they fell within the city's jurisdiction and they reared cattle to supplement their so-deprived income. "The village has not developed into a city as promised nor have they allowed us to cultivate our fallow fields,' said a farmer. "As our area is still a village, we request the city officials to allow us to keep cattle on the condition we tie them up and not allow them to go into town and on the roads,' said the village tshogpa. One angry farmer told Kuensel that TCC had not kept its word. "They said that they would demarcate our land and allow us to build houses,' he said. "If that happened, we would have sold some part it, built houses and rented them out to earn an income. This has not happened and we need to supplement our income by rearing cattle.' Others said that TCC needs to get rid of stray dogs before they do cattle. A farmer from Olakha said that without cultivation there was no hay for cattle and they had no choice but to let them graze in the empty paddy fields. "I'm contemplating selling my cows but I can't think of buying cheese and butter from the market,' Tshering Om said. Ironically, most farmers were provided subsidy by the agriculture ministry in the early 1990s to purchase cross-bred cows to encourage them to rear livestock. But it looks like TCC is not going to bend their rule. According to the environment head of TCC, Gyeltshen Dorji, the farmers were given a time extension of one month to get rid of their cattle. "They can approach the ministry if the problem is really genuine,' he said. By Tashi Dendup