PANAJI
Around 14 per cent of Goa’s land is ‘highly’ and ‘moderately’ suitable for agroforestry “ a traditional combination of practising agriculture and forestry together on the same unit of land. According to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and NITI Aayog study, Goa’s agroforestry suitability is spread across a total area of 463 sq kms.
The data released last week reveals that 8.87 per cent of Goa’s total geographical area, that is 309.60 sq kms is “highly” suitable for agroforestry while another 4.4 per cent falls under “moderate” category. This comprises 153.64 sq kms land.
Most area - 86 per cent of the total land (3028.10 sq kms) falls under ‘not applicable’ category and this includes cropped areas, forests and other land use system, other than classified ‘wastelands’. States have variable wastelands areas suited for taking up agroforestry for wasteland greening.
North Goa, with 178.04 sq kms of land, has the highest area suitable for agroforestry while South has an area of 131.55 sq kms.
However, South Goa has a large chunk of 82.10 sq kms of land under ‘moderate’ category, while North has 71.54 sq kms of land.
Agroforestry is the integration of trees, crops and/or livestock on the same piece of land to enhance productivity and resilience of farms and deliver numerous vital ecological services.
“Hence, it can act as a promising land-based transformation solution with several co-benefits. Adoption of agroforestry can enhance farmers’ income, increase in green cover, natural resource conservation, production of forest based raw-materials and rural development,” the report stated.
A multi-institutional team was formed by NITI Aayog to develop a Geographic Information System based analysis to assess the agroforestry suitability regimes in wastelands across the country. The team utilised remote sensing and GIS to assess agroforestry suitability across all districts in India through ISRO.
States with more than 1 lakh sq km were categorised under large States, while those having area between 10,000 sq km up to 1 lakh sq km as medium and those below 10,000 sq km as small states. Goa falls under the Small State category.
At present, total area of India under agroforestry is about 28.42 million hectares that covers about 8.65 per cent of the total geographical area of the country. And now, according to this report, around 6.18 per cent and 4.91 per cent of India’s land is highly and moderately suitable for agroforestry, respectively.
