'GREEN' GIRGOLIN
>> She embarked on a mission to convince a couple of land owners to allow her to cultivate the paddy fields lying fallow>> The job of locating the land owners in addition to convincing them to allow cultivation consumed lot of time
>> Finally only around 21,000 sq mts was taken under cultivation, manages a yield of around 2300 kgs
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MARGAO: Hailing from the picturesque village of Velim, she is back with another success story of reviving paddy cultivation in agricultural fields lying fallow over the years.
Even before the much-talked about government scheme of contract farming could take off, Girgolin Fernandes has managed to bring around 21,000 square meters of area under paddy cultivation, which is not her own, but belonging to different land owners. These fields have been lying fallow for over two decades, but she embarked on a mission to convince a few land owners to allow her to cultivate the fields.
Says Agricultural Officer Shariff Furtado: The credentials of this hardworking farmer was put to test when she embarked on a mission to convince a couple of land owners to allow her to cultivate the paddy fields lying fallow. Many an enthusiastic land owner gave oral permission and the result is now for all to see. Initially, Girgolin had set a specified area as her target, but the job of locating the land owners in addition to convincing them to allow cultivation consumed lot of time and hence finally only around 21,000 sq mts was taken under cultivation”.
Girgolin has already proved her credentials after successfully raising paddy crop in 20,000 sq mts of cultivable land in the last Rabi season in the command area of Selaulim Irrigation Project. “In the last Rabi season, her family managed to get a good yield, around 2300 kgs, to be precise, which she has sold to Adarsh Coop society Balli in Quepem taluka,” Shariff said.
It was not a smooth journey for the farmer as she has embarked on bringing the fallow land under cultivation. According to Girgolin, the cost transplanting is fixed at the higher side. In fact, many a farmer have insisted that the rate per sq mt of cost of transplanting should come down to a minimum Rs 2 per Sq mts as the conventional method of transplanting by hand works out to be cheaper. Farmers want the Directorate of Agriculture officials to work out the rate of transplanting and reduce it further. The women farmer have been billed Rs 35,000 for transplanting her field which is very much on the higher side.
The Agriculture Department has introduced the mechanised transplanting scheme, providing 50 per cent subsidy to paddy farmers. An amount of Rs 1.50 per sq mt is subsidised at source with effective cost of cultivation pegged at Rs 3 per Sq mts. Due to non-availability of the transplanter machine in time, the woman farmer, however, had to start transplanting a small area on her own based on technique of System of Rice Intensification ( SRI ) with the conventional method but soon local mechanised cultivation officials sent the transplanter operated by the authorised service provider
Sharrif said it was not easy to bring back land uncultivated for 25 years back into cultivation. “The costing involved in bringing back fallow land to cultivation is always enormous and more than double than the cost of cultivating same patch year after year,” he added.
