Farmers puzzled over timing their pre-season ploughing Ops
PANAJI
Extreme weather, which many attribute to larger climate change features, is beginning to leave Goa's farming community worried especially those who cultivate paddy in the State's vast expanses of khazan lands with the Kharif season fast approaching.
A prolonged heat wave baking the soil dry and the accompanying freaky, unusual rains creating conducive conditions for widespread weed growth has left many farmers puzzled over how to time their pre-season ploughing operations to prepare the fields for sowing operations when the actual monsoon hits.
Officials of the Agriculture department whose zonal agricultural officers (ZAO) are the go to officials for most paddy farmers during the Kharif season admit that cultivating paddy is heavily dependent on the vagaries of the weather and climatic conditions.
Over the last few years, especially during and after the Covid-19 pandemic, interest in farming activities has shown marked upswing in Goa but paddy cultivators in particular were faced with coping with extreme weather -- shortfall in quantum of rain when it is needed most and excessive rain leaving paddy submerged post flowering -- agriculture officials admitted.
Not everything, however, has been gloomy for Goa's paddy cultivators recently. For instance, labour costs, otherwise a huge burden which ultimately affects profitability of paddy cultivation operations, has somewhat been overcome with widespread introduction of mechanised paddy cultivation, the costs of which are almost fully subsidised by the Agriculture department.
Closer to the capital city of Panaji and in outlying villages of the Tiswadi taluka in St Cruz, Taleigao, Goa Velha Agacaim and further into the interiors up to Cumbharjua, booking of mechanical equipment for paddy cultivation with approved service providers has already begun.
Within the next week physical activity like ploughing fields will begin in most of these low lying Tiswadi areas, said an agriculture officer, adding that as far as the weather/climate is concerned they and the farmers can only hope for the best.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a UN panel tasked with assessing latest global climate science, has warned crop yields for rice could be poorer among other grains like wheat, etc.
Hotter and more frequent heatwaves, which it attributes to 'climate change', impedes plant growth, IPCC adds.
