PANAJI
A “farmer centric” Goa State Agriculture policy, with a road map for next ten years will be ready before the Republic Day, January 26, 2024, Agriculture Minister Ravi Naik announced on Monday.
A 24-members committee under Naik, constituted to work out a comprehensive agriculture policy for the State held its first meeting on Monday.
The State government has directed the committee to finalize the policy within six months.
Addressing media persons post meeting, Naik said that the Committee has so far received 746 suggestions from the stakeholders and general public for the policy and the last day to submit is September 16.
He said that the Committee has decided to hold maximum public consultation to seek inputs that could be incorporated in the policy.
The Committee has decided to direct all the panchayats to hold a special Gram Sabha on October 2 with Agriculture Policy as one of the main agenda. Also, taluka-level open forums will be conducted to get suggestions.
“The government endeavors to formulate a farmer centric policy. The focus of the policy would be to revive the fallow agriculture land and attract youth towards farming. We want to make agriculture an employment generating sector,” the Minister said, adding that the best practices from agriculture policies from other States will also be incorporated in Goa State Agriculture Policy.
Naik also said that the Revenue Department will also be taken on board to ensure speedy implementation of the Agriculture Tenancy Act.
Director Agriculture Nevil Alphonso said that the Committee has identified 25-30 focus areas and to work on it, five sub-committees will be constituted.
“These sub-committees will explore in detail these focus areas and submit reports to the main committee,” he said.
Committee member Nandkumar Kamat said that Goa’s agriculture sector is facing threat due to urbanization and climate change and the policy will work out means and measures to overcome these threats.
The committee has to suggest means to develop agriculture as well as methods to protect and improve available resources like land, water, bio-diversity and genetic resources. Apart from focusing on market driven economy, the committee has to also suggest measures to involve the PPP model for new agriculture ventures.
