PANAJI
Goa's farmers, especially those who cultivate paddy in the State's vast expanses of khazans and other low-lying lands, have begun operations to plough and prepare their fields for sowing.
Many still continue to employ manual, traditional methods like using one or a pair of bullocks to pull the plough through their fields. They also sow (transplant paddy saplings) manually.
Agriculture officials, however, said that the number of farmers transitioning to mechanised methods using tractors for ploughing and mechanised implements for transplanting saplings too is also fast growing.
"Land holdings of many farmers are small and so it is not feasible to use tractors. Also, in several regions the topography of their fields is such that tractors and mechanical transplanters cannot access their fields. So these farmers have to rely on traditional methods of ploughing and transplanting manually," Director of Agriculture, Sandeep Fal Desai said.
Traditionally, farmers in Goa sow paddy seeds ahead of the start of the monsoon and then transplant the saplings when the rains gain momentum, when the khazan and other low-lying fields get mildly flooded.
Zonal Agricultural Officers (ZAO) and their support staff hand-hold many paddy farmers in these operations, constantly feeding them with crucial weather and crop health information besides supporting their applications for seed and fertiliser subsidies.
Goa's farming community cultivates over 23,000-odd hectares with paddy across the State in the kharif (monsoon) season with a net production of over one lakh tonnes.
Last year, however, net production fell to about 77,769 tonnes owing to the extreme weather and flooding of fields. This year, however, the agriculture department are hedging their bets on a more uniform monsoon to gross a record output above the 1.1 lakh tonnes achieved in 2023-24, unless the weather gods decide otherwise.
