Crop farming was projected to produce 20 % of GDP in 1991. Only about 15 % of Bhutan's extremely mountainous land was arable, and less than 6 % was under permanent cultivation. Because rainfall and temperatures changed radically from one valley to the next, there were remarkable variations in the kinds of crops that were raised in neighboring communities. Most farms were small, with 91 % of nearly 65,700 landholders having less than 5 hectares. Nearly 50 % of those farms used terraced cultivation; another 18.5 % were in valleys. Although banned by the government, tsheri cultivation accounted for 32 % of the agricultural land use and about 3 % of the total land in the early to 1980s.

The most common farm animal types traditionally and in the late 1980s, in order of numbers of head, were cattle, poultry, pigs, goats, sheep, yaks, and horses. Buffaloes, donkeys, and mules also were raised. Although all types of farm animal were raised throughout the nation, cattle tended to predominate in the east and south, horses in the east, yaks and pigs in the west, and goats and poultry in the south. Milk production stood at 31,100 tons in 1987.