the goan I network
PANAJI
Days ahead of Christmas day, residents of the sleepy St Estevam village have a pleasant surprise in store. For, Santa Claus in the form of the village’s Ilha Verde Farmers Club is busy readying their presents -- huge bags of home grown rice.
Some 33 tonnes (3,300 kilograms) of par-boiled Jyoti rice has arrived in the village from a rice mill in Kudal and most of it will be distributed over the next few days to the dozens of families who contributed and invested in the massive community farming project executed during this year’s kharif season.
President of the Club, Nestor Rangel, told The Goan that 50 tonnes of paddy was transported for processing to the Bajaj Rice Mill in Kudal. It has yielded 33 tonnes of finished, parboiled Jyoti rice at a satisfactory 66% recovery rate.
“Most of the rice will be distributed in Santo Estevam to the families who invested in our project,” Rangel said, adding that it is the club’s gesture of gratitude for the faith they reposed in them and for generously contributing in cash or kind to the project. “If stocks remain after distribution, we will be selling it through the Krishi Samruddhi FPO,” Rangel added.
Nearly 50 hectares of khazan lands in the village which lay fallow for three decades and more were tilled and sown with paddy this June-July after more than nine months of planning, mapping of ownership and meticulous campaigning among the owners for their consent.
A group of youngsters led by Rangel and the local parish priest, Fr Eusico Pereira, executed the project by deploying the mechanical cultivation expertise of Salesian priest Fr George Quadros and technical support from officials of the State Agriculture Department.
When in October-November the paddy was harvested, their joy knew no bounds, reinforcing the faith they reposed in traditional paddy cultivation, chiefly to arrest the assault on green lands and protect them from nexuses of political, real estate and other commercial lobbies.
The economic success of the project has now buoyed the Ilha Verde Farmers Club to attempt to double the coverage to 100 hectares next season.
Rangel said, the lessons learnt from the maiden attempt will be put to use next year to plan and execute the massive project in a more efficient manner.
According to him, they have more or less covered the input costs through the procurement of nearly 20 tonnes by agencies approved by the Agriculture Department. These agencies picked up over 20 tonnes for distribution as
