However, as the years pass by, like most other varieties of crops, cash crops or even local vegetables, local wild mushrooms too have become an endangered species. These mushrooms are unique to Goa’s landmass. But today most rices, cereals, horticulture and cash crops which are so unique to this small State face the danger of extinction unless the State government, the local farmers and scientists employed by the State or Central government institutions take up the cause of saving these species with missionary zeal.
In the first stage, the crops and species typical to the western ghats, midlands and coast have to be mapped and strategic plans drawn up to save the species by classifying and preserving the seeds and then multiplying them on a mass scale to save these species. The gravity of the problem is such that rice varieties which are extinct from India have been preserved in the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation supported International Rice Research Institute in Philippines, with obvious intent, while IRRI is promoting high yielding varieties (HYV) in Asia.
Goa itself has 28 known varieties of rice. However, it is the bankruptcy of the higher educational and research institutions in the State that we have imported so called HYV which are responsible for the assault on the traditional varieties. Scientists in the country are well aware of the devastation caused by the Green Revolution in areas of Punjab and other states where the fields have turned barren and crop yields fallen dramatically, rendering the lands unusable as mapped by scholars. Goa rice varieties, like many regional varieties, though not high yielding are well suited for the Goan terrain comprising morods (uplands), kherlands (midlands) and khazan lands (saline lands). They are generally resistant to pests and have been thus fashioned by generations of ancestors who knew the climatic conditions, the pests and other geographical factors.
Similarly, the cashew crop too, which was native of eastern Brazil and was first introduced to India by growing it in Goa, faces extinction. Both the producers and retailers of cashew have no long term plans for the continuance of this crop. Due to the demand from tourists, cashewnuts from Tanzania, Kerala and other places have found their way into the Goan market. The Goan cashew plantations were done on the hill slopes with the twin purpose to prevent soil erosion and because cashew crop did not require fertile soil.
There are a whole variety of chillies, spices, fruits such as jackfruit, pineapple, mango, and even coconut varieties which are under threat due to the inflow of other varieties from outside the State. Of these, mangoes and tender coconuts are under gravest threat due to unabated inflow from outside without examination for disease and other malaficence.
It has been a tragedy of the scientific community in India to promote certain hybrid plant and animal varieties for their high yielding capacity, without much of a thought about the long term effects on people’s health, topography, markets and local livelihoods. It is akin to taking steroids to instantly boost one’s health. Additionally, the development model adopted in Goa has been in the forefront of assault on the fields, the plateaus and hill sides leading to destruction of rice and cashew plantations. Lack of substantive support from successive governments coupled with changing lifestyles have weaned away growers from their traditional occupations.
Since this phenomena involves many private actors who may play for their own short term gains and conveniences, the State governments as protectors of Goa’s long term interests should ensure that seed banks of local varieties are created and multiplied and produced on large scale so that local varieties do not face extinction.
