MAPUSA: Due to incessant rains, water submerged the paddy fields destroying over 15 lakh square metres of the crop belonging to over 500 farmers of St Estevam Island. The paddy fields were cultivated as a part of community farming.

The loss incurred by these farmers is pegged at around Rs 50 lakh. This disaster has come as a huge blow to the attempt of community farming to revive Goa’s agricultural economy in general and paddy cultivation in particular.

The flooding has been aggravated by release of water from the Anjunem dam resulting in massive welling of rivers.  Farmers in other places, too, are facing the bleak prospect of losing their crops in the low-lying fields. The flooding of the fields has affected the farmers of Divar Island, too, causing widespread damage to the paddy fields with some crop completely submerged in flood waters.

The farming community alleges that haphazard development has led to the flooding of fields across several villages in Goa. The farmers said that they would complain to the WRD chief engineer for releasing water from the Anjunem dam that resulted in large scale flooding and destruction of the paddy fields.

Officials from the Agriculture Department visited St Estevam on Wednesday to gauge the damage caused to the fields by the flooding as concerned farmers are highly alarmed at the rising level of water in Mandovi River and the huge financial loss they are facing.  The farmers fear that if the incessant rains do not stop, all paddy crops cultivated on these islands would begin to rot and hamper the revival of agricultural economy.

Goa Green Brigade coordinator Avertino Miranda said that the widespread environmental damage in Goa has contributed to these flooding. Miranda is heading the social marketing of the Goan brown rice.

“This flooding that has occurred is more of a man-made disaster especially due to the cutting of mangroves, tree cover, hill cutting and illegal filling of low lying fields across the State. Goans must take the politicians to task especially those who said development is more important at the cost of destruction of our environment. The people of Goa are paying the price now, while the politicians are staying in their cozy homes with their ill-gotten money bags from defections,” he said.

Farmers Club of St Estevam President Nestor said that flooding has been caused due to global warming and other environmental damage.

“A similar situation like this took place ten years ago. The fields are being flooded because water is filling over the banks of River Mandovi. The release of water from the Anjunem dam is also the reason for flooding. They should have released water is short stages when there was no high tide. All are efforts have gone in vain as our crops are under water for the last five days and will definitely rot. The water level in the field is over 4 ft. We have suffered a loss of over Rs 40 lakh,” Rangel said.