Team Herald
PANJIM: Goa might soon witness a trend of rooftop vegetable production as the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) is all set to promote ‘VegFast’ technology.
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The ‘VegFast’ technology is one of the trade mark technology for urban gardening developed by ICAR-Central Potato Research Institute (CPRI)- Jalandhar. CPRI has been developing technologies for farmers for potato cultivation all these years.
The Central Coastal Agriculture Research Institute (CCARI) of ICAR has taken lead to promote the technology in Goa in a bid to increase the vegetable production with an aim of making the State self sufficient in the commodity.
“This promising technology has tremendous scope in Goa, where healthy and fresh vegetables can be grown in the terraces, balconies and rooftops of housing societies, restaurants, hotels and beachfronts,” ICAR said.
ICAR-CCARI last week held a webinar on ‘VegFast’ which was attended by nearly 100 stakeholders including officials of State Agriculture department, vegetable growers, and resident welfare association executive, among others.
During the webinar, Secretary Agriculture IAS Kuldeep Singh Gangar said that the technology will help boost the vegetable production in the State.
He lauded the efforts of ICAR-CCARI in sensing the urgent need of Goa state regarding shortage of vegetable production and emphasized for close collaboration of ICAR-CCARI, Goa and Directorate of Agriculture to make the project a success.
ICAR-CCARI director Dr Parveen Kumar stressed on the need of technologies like ‘VegFast’ for the state of Goa to make it self-reliant in vegetables production and reduce its dependence on Karnataka and Maharashtra.
As per the government record, about 7500 ha of area is cultivated under vegetable crops in the State. The local production of vegetables meets a meager part of the State. The State’ production of vegetables is about 65,000 tonnes, while the combined demand for domestic and the tourist population is estimated to be 1, 50,000 tonnes.
