MARGAO
Around 50 hectares of paddy fields and 250 farmers. The sheer figures will appear mindboggling, more so when the fields have been left barren and fallow for years now.
Indeed, the task set out by the Chinchinim Agricultural Club to bring together 250 farmers to revive around five lakh square metres of fields lying fallow at Patto and Digaum over the years have borne fruit.
The experiment did not disappoint the farmers as they reaped good yield at both Patto and Digaum as the Paddy man of Goa Fr George Quadros and his team went about harvesting the paddy on Sunday.
Buoyed by the success, the Chinchinim Agricultural Club and the Paddy Man have set a new target “ to bring a total of 100 hectares of land at both Digaum and Patto under cultivation in the coming season.
Fr George informed that the farmers have received a good paddy yield, adding that the focus now is to bring 100 hectares of agricultural land to cultivation at Chinchinim.
“A small revolution that started at Chinchinim is now spreading to other villages. We saw the farmers of Navelim reviving fallow agricultural fields at Salpem after over three decades. This is a good beginning, but there’s still long way to go to bring barren fields under cultivation”, Fr George added.
Chinchinim Comunidade Attorney Agnelo Furtado, who took the initiative to revive the fallow village fields, first at Digaum and now at Patto, said the focus should now be centered on bringing youngsters o agriculture. “Today, we brought the school children of St Mary school led by Sr Namrata to witness the harvesting. We now plan to allocate certain plots to the students in the coming season to grow sweet potatoes, water melons etc in the fields. This will help to inculcate in the young minds love for agriculture and to take it forward”, Agnelo said.
Agnelo added: “I am happy that youngster Jyod Simoes has purchased a tractor with subsidy. We have to encourage youngsters to take up farming. Farmers of Patto used to cultivate the fields in patches, but we got many others to cultivate the fields this year. The yield has been good and very encouraging."
Complimenting the Chinchinim farmers club, Velim MLA Cruz Silva said the initiative has helped to bring rich dividends, and disclosed plans to take the revolution to entire Velim constituency.
Impressed by the initiative of the Chinchinim farmers club, Agriculture Director Neville Alphonso said the department of Agriculture will not lag behind in supporting the initiative.
He said the Agriculture department is in the process of revising the subsidies provided to agriculture activities to tide over the problems faced by the farming community.
