Agriculture Minister cites floods, unseasonal rains for slump
PANAJI
Despite the Agriculture Department’s overdrive promotion of high yield varieties of paddy across the State, annual production of rice has been dwindling in recent years, data submitted by the State government to the Goa Legislative Assembly in the recently concluded monsoon session shows.
Last year (2024-25) paddy output dropped despite an increase in the area covered by paddy cultivation, both in the kharif as well as rabi season, with the State recording an output of just 1.1 lakh tonnes. It was 1.4 lakh tonnes the previous year.
The reason for the decline has been mostly attributed to the extreme weather event in July-August last year which hit standing crop across the State especially in low lying areas where most farmers lost 100 per cent of their crop.
In a reply to a query posed by Fatorda MLA Vijai Sardesai, Agriculture Minister Ravi Naik said, the paddy yield in the kharif season of 2024-25 was 3.25 tonnes per hectare as against 4.33 tonnes per hectare the previous year.
In the Rabi season too, the average yields dropped last year. While it was 4.24 tonnes per hectare in 2024-25, it was much higher at 4.47 tonnes in 2023-24.
Naik said some of the causes for the drop in yield are the extreme weather conditions Goa witnessed in 2024-25 like the heat wave in summer which led to reduction in flowering and the excessive as well as unseasonal rains which caused damage to paddy as well as various other crops including vegetables and cashewnut.
“The flooding in July-August damaged low lying paddy fields, especially at seedling/ transplanting stage and also maturity time,” Naik said in the reply while responding in the negative to a supplementary which sought to know whether any special study is conducted or commissioned by the department on the yield affecting factors since the year 2022.
Naik said, crop insurance scheme Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) implemented in the State covers destruction of crops due to extreme weather events, including drought, unseasonal rainfall, hailstorms, cyclones, floods/ inundation except for sugarcane and paddy.
