TURNING FALLOW
LAND FERTILE
* A band of youth from the village, goaded by a local parish priest have put in hard work to revive cultivation
* They have pooled resources, taken technical support and assistance of some agriculture department schemes
* They are ensuring that paddy will be sprouted for the first time in nearly three decades this Kharif season
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JAI KISAN!
* As of today, 22 hectares (roughly 2.2-lakh square metres) have been ploughed and sown
* The balance nearly 28 hectares is expected to be sown within the next fortnight or so
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MAN OF THE FIELD >>
NESTOR RANGEL
* Eight years ago he gave up his electrometers and soldering irons for ploughs and sickles
* Plan to cultivate first came to his mind during activism days of late Bismarque Dias
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PANAJI: For decades government officials and politicians heading Goa's agriculture ministry have struggled to revive paddy cultivation. Fragmented land holdings limiting scales, high costs, as well as unavailability of farm labour, were some of the problems which proved insurmountable for them.
This year, however, villagers of St Estevao are showing how to overcome all of these hurdles and more. A band of youth from the village, goaded by the local parish priest, Fr Eusico, have put in hard work and tact to revive cultivation of some 5 lakh square metres of khazan lands lying fallow for long.
They have had to individually contact all the innumerable tenants many of them untraceable to seek their permission to bring the land under cultivation.
They have pooled resources, taken technical support and assistance of some agriculture department schemes, employed modern paddy cultivation techniques and are ensuring that the 5-lakh square metres (50 hectares) will sprout paddy for the first time in nearly three decades this Kharif season.
As of today, 22 hectares (roughly 2.2-lakh square metres) have been ploughed and sown with paddy and those behind the mammoth farming operation are confident that the balance nearly 28 hectares will be sown within the next fortnight or so.
Interestingly, St Estevam's efforts to turn their khazan lands, for long lying red to green, are spearheaded not by a traditional farmer but a 52-year-old electronic engineer Nestor Rangel, who eight years ago forsake his electrometers and soldering irons for ploughs and sickles.
According to Rangel the plan to cultivate the vast expanse of barren Khazan lands in St Estevam first came to mind during the fiery activism days of the late Bismarque Dias, the priest-turned-activist son of the village who was mysteriously found dead floating in the backwaters hugging the village some two years ago.
"In May this year with the help of the Parish priest and a core team of some enthusiastic youth of the village we have succeeded in practically implementing it," says Rangel.
Shoulder to shoulder with Rangel in the project are Shailendra Afonso, Ashwin Varela, Ansyl Gonsalves and dozens of men and women folk from the historically agrarian village, a group of islands encircled by the Mandovi river and the Cumbharjua canal.
First, Rangel and his core team of youth contacted the Parish Priest and sold the idea to him. They then downloaded the land records, including the 'Form I & XIV' of the identified chunk of five-lakh square metres of khazan land and identified the families that own them.
Then came the toughest part, of contacting these families and convincing them to join the ambitious project. This is where the role of the Parish Priest and the small Christian communities (somudais) played a crucial part. A series of nearly two dozen meetings through the better part of the month of May finally got families who collectively owned about sixty per cent of the land. That's when the call was taken to put in the finances and go full steam ahead with the massive operation.
Even the land where owners were not contactable will be cultivated, said Rangel, adding that if issues arise they will cross the bridge when they get to it. To overcome labour and input costs, the team resorted to mechanisation of both the ploughing and transplantation operations. The team negotiated a hard bargain and enlisted the services of tractor contractors from Mapusa to plough the entire expanse of land at a reasonable price.
And for the transplantation of the paddy saplings, Salesian priest Fr George Quadros, who devised his own equipment to transplant paddy saplings mechanically and in the business for four years, has been brought on board. Meanwhile, news of St Estevam tryst with paddy cultivation is spreading to neighbouring villages of Tiswadi taluka. Rangel was invited to narrate the story to parishioners of St Cruz which he did at mass last Sunday. In the audience was the Sarpanch Mariano Araujo and he invited Rangel to sensitise the panchas of St Cruz which the latter did on Monday.
By the end of the current fortnight, the entire 50 hectares is expected to be covered by the transplantation.
To meet the input costs, including the seeds, Rangel and a couple of others have chipped in with their own funds. Many of the landowners have also agreed and have begun paying up at the rate of Rs 2.50 per square meter in proportion of the size of their land holdings.
The villagers have also applied for subsidies under existing government schemes of the agriculture department after Zonal Agriculture Officer Rudresh Kambli had sittings with them to explain the various schemes.
Although the State government isn't directly involved, one of its top officials Sanjeev Mayenkar has been a source of encouragement to the community. Despite the activity not falling within his jurisdiction of work, Mayekar has constantly been around through the ploughing and sowing operation in St Estevam, advising and encouraging the villagers.
According to Mayenkar, what the St Estevam village has collectively set out to do is highly commendable.
"I hope the weather gods smile and the harvest is good. The success could make it an example for other villages to emulate and hopefully trigger a green revolution of sorts in Goa," Mayekar said.
Reviving agriculture and earning a profit if the yield good is but one motive of the entire operation, says Rangel and his band of paddy warriors from St Estevam.
"More importantly the effort is aimed at halting the bulldozers and concrete mixers from permanently robbing us of our land through the unscrupulous politician-builder-development-lobby nexus," Rangel said.
"We explained to the villagers that if they do not chip in to collectively cultivate the land we will lose it forever. The government's 'Nationalisation of Rivers' plan permits acquisition of land along either banks of the rivers," Rangel added.
This story of St Estevam is a welcome breath of fresh air for the agriculture sector of the State. Will it trigger a green revolution as some officials in Goa are hoping?
Only time and perhaps a bumper paddy harvest in St Estevam will tell.
