PANAJI
T he State government is placing its bets on the lucrative cultivation of vegetables to achieve self-sufficiency and has named progressive vegetable grower Varad Samant of Dharbandora as Goa’s ‘Agriculture Ambassador’.
The government intends to make Samant the poster boy of Goa’s push to scale up vegetable cultivation to the extent of making the State self-sufficient in some varieties.
Samant, a commerce graduate in his early thirties, experimented with vegetables after the excessive rainfall in 2023 caused massive losses to him and the farming community across the State. He achieved success with his out-of-the-box choice to cultivate carrots for the first time in the State. He has also extensively travelled to agricultural villages in Maharashtra and Karnataka to study agricultural techniques used there.
Growing carrots was an idea he picked up on a visit to Belagavi, and after the success of his experiment on a 500-square-metre parcel of land, he is now extending it to one hectare. Chilli (khola variety) and okra (lady’s finger) are the other vegetable varieties that Samant has successfully cultivated. As Agriculture Ambassador, Samant is expected to guide farmers across the State by conducting training programmes on how to enhance productivity, officials said.
In recent years, vegetable production in Goa has taken a leap, especially in cucumber, okra, cluster beans and cabbage, riding on the back of the Goa Horticulture Corporation’s ‘assured market scheme’. The scheme assures market facilities and guaranteed prices for produce. Since the scheme was instituted in 2019-20, the number of farmers covered under it has grown from 1,081 to 1,248 in six years.
Also, the quantity of vegetables produced by these 1,248 farmers has increased by 658 metric tonnes, according to official records of the GSHC.
