A recent report on the Herald stated that the fields of Khareband and Shirvoddem on the outskirts of Margao town are now uncultivable given the fact that there’s increasing pollution and effluent flowing into these rice fields while the Margao Municipality and SGPDA has done precious little to support the cause of these farmers.

Going by the same tangent of raising the plight of these farmers, Herald Team decided to get their feet mucky and travel through these fields speaking to these farmers of their struggles at Borda, Agalli, Seraulim and Maddel as the town’s last few rice fields are being cultivated.

Piedade Noronha alone struggles in her fields and explains how she came to the partially flooded field at 6 am and is now leaving for home at 7 pm after spending a gruelling 13 hours in the water body and mucky fields.

“The birds feast on the paddy we have sown to germinate as the monsoons are just coming in. We have to stay for long hours in the fields to protect the seed. Also the water flow has to be managed, the land has to be tilled and we have to prepare our fields for the monsoons,” explains Piedade.

Piedade, who has been cultivating her fields for over 40 years, has slowly seen her fields in Borda diminishing and also finds it more and more difficult to access her fields and with lone support of her daughter and son-in-law she struggles with cultivating the fields.

“We have stopped growing three portions of these fields since the sewerage department aids these sewerage chambers in the fields. There’s seepage of sewerage water and if we venture in those parts of the fields, our bodies develop an itching and allergies,” stated Piedade.

Similarly Antonio Andrade, who works as rickshaw driver, recalls how Borda and Fatorda had rice fields right up till the main road but over the years the fields have been replaced by buildings and even worse the access to our fields is blocked.

Antonio’s wife Joaquina tells us how the gutters and nullahs are connected to the rice fields and often the crop dies as it’s covered with plastics and other garbage disposed into the fields.

“The SGPDA has been trying to convert half of these fields for a construction and hence, the party has redirected a gutter which has destroyed the bandhs of our fields and causing excessive flooding. We need to redirect that flow or our crop will be destroyed,” says Joaquina.

Joaquina says that the Agriculture Department has promised fertilizer and as of now given just rice seeds. She also explains how the fact that they don’t live in a village they miss out agricultural benefits that come to panchayat areas.

“Forget the fact that the MMC fails to acknowledge our fields and agriculture in a town fighting for construction space but over the years the MMC could at least build nice steps and a railing for us to go into the fields but even that has never been done. We give up daily wage works which is more lucrative to grow paddy to meet our needs and sell the extra produce in the market, we keep agricultural traditions alive but nobody cares for us from the government’s end,” stated Antonio.

Similar to the plight of Antonio are the thirty odd farmers displaced at Maddel since 2002 when they lost their land to a GSUDA land acquisition for a truck terminus for Rs 2 per sq mt.

“Since then till today though we lost our land and a court case also for the same, we’ve never stopped cultivating our fields even though in 2002 the then Collector passed a false report that our lands are fallow,” stated Mac Costa from Maddel who heads the Xetkarancho Ekvott at Maddel and Seraulim.

Assencao Fernandes from the same group of farmers asserted, “We lost our land to that emergency acquisition and as of today, the GSUDA has scrapped the truck terminus on the 1. 35 lakhs sq.mts of land and even worse, the MMC along with the SGPDA has decided to shift the wholesale market to that region to renovate the existing ailing one.”

Assencao explains how garbage and Styrofoam boxes from the wholesale fish market besides the shards of broken alcohol bottles discharged by the migrant workers who work in the wholesale fish market have ruined their agricultural fields. To make matters worse, she says, the Western Bypass has blocked parts of the River Sal and carried out land filling in adjacent Nuvem village which has added to their woes and eliminated their agricultural activity by 50% this year. However, the farmers say that growing fields is what they have learned over decades and generations and they will keep their agriculture alive.