PANAJI
Goa's watermelon farmers are raking in the cash with bountiful harvests, and family members are engaged in retail sales along roadsides and national highways, briskly selling the juicy fruit, which has become a favourite amid rising temperatures.
Succorin Fernandes sells between 12 and 15 watermelons a day, harvested from a 1.5-acre field in Majorda that her family cultivates. Each large, rounded watermelon fetches her between Rs 200-250, depending on size. Fernandes also sells other produce, like alsanno, on the roadside along the Panaji-Margao highway at Verna.
The watermelon crop, normally harvested from March to April, is looking good this year, according to agriculture department officials.
Director of Agriculture, Sandeep Fol Desai, said there have been no complaints of any pest attacks on the watermelon crop this year.
"Output is expected to be bountiful, just like last year. Watermelon is grown mostly in Bardez, Tiswadi, and Salcete," Fol Desai said, adding that initial harvest season reports from zonal agriculture officers from these talukas have been good.
Succorin, meanwhile, told The Goan that her family, in the past, used to grow watermelons, doing all the farm labour themselves. "Now we employ farm hands. My daughter goes to college. Things have changed," Succorin said.
Nagoa, Verna, Utorda, Majorda, and partly Betalbatim are the watermelon heartlands of South Goa, with the fruit from here considered top quality. In the North, coastal Bardez is where watermelon is grown on a large scale.
Before last year, farmers who grew watermelon were affected by poor harvests for a few years, with their crops hit by the melon moth pests. This time, like last year, however, there are no reports of any pest attacks, Fol Desai added.
