Goa has been blessed by God with abundant greenery and water resources. Being the smallest State on the map of India it was one of the most forward States in agriculture. We can only admire its past glory and if we are really proud of our agricultural heritage our priority today should be to recapture the past and rebuild a much more admirable State in agriculture. All of us have to work together to harness our natural resources and develop them most profitably in order to revive our economy which was predominantly agriculture based.
There is no point in lamenting only about its destruction, which has taken place over the last 50 years, but let all of us use our heads and hands together and march forward towards its restoration leading to the highest heights of its development.
Here are a few suggestions towards reviving the same:
The Agricultural Tenancy Act 1964 was the main cause for the criminal destruction of Goa’s agriculture. Accepting the truth about it will be the first step towards its restoration. Once we accepts the truth the next step will be repealing the same Act, in toto, since the Act has failed to meet the aim for which it was enacted. No law is made perpetual just by its enactment. It is subject to change. The SC bench comprising of Justices B.N. Agrawal and G.S Singhvi while delivering the judgement in the Civil Appeal No. 1897/2003, in the No. 29 of the said judgement have the following: “It is trite to say that legislation which may be quite reasonable and rationale at the time of its enactment may with the lapse of time and/or due to change of circumstances become arbitrary, unreasonable and violative of the doctrine of equity and even if the validity of such legislation may have been upheld at a given point of time, the Court may, in subsequent litigation, strike down the same if it is found that the rationale of classification has become non-existent.” This judgement mutatis mutandis is fully applicable to the Goa Agricultural Tenancy Act 1964.
Since from time immemorial the rightful owner of Goa’s agriculture was the Ganvkari entity, it should be handed over to the same entity. It was centuries old system with proven record in the matter. Only then Goan agriculture can flourish again. All other options/ suggestions will amount to patchwork solutions and since the State was responsible for the Goan agriculture’s destruction it should subsidise the same Ganvkaris till it falls in place. It may take 10-15 years for the entire system to revert to the earlier normal position.
Motivate the people (farmers/ cultivators) students and youth to take up agriculture. It is impossible for the Government to give white collar jobs to every student passing with various stages and degrees of education. Agriculture is a permanent occupation, provided one has some land to do it. Somehow education has delinked us from the land tilling, thinking it is below our dignity. Today’s school as well as college students and youth in general don’t even know how to hold a pickaxe or a spade. The government has given priority to sports over agriculture. No doubt sports is needed but agriculture is much more, even to keep us fit in health through hard work. As the Government is acquiring fertile paddy fields for sports play-grounds, so let the government also allot land for simultaneously teaching agriculture to students and give them marks so that our students will take keen interest in it.
The State that in the past has primed itself in agriculture in the entire country, today, can’t even boast itself of having a College in Agriculture. Private initiatives by the Don Bosco’s Society Fathers have been instrumental in setting up an Agriculture College at Sulcorna and the family of Manguirish Pai Raikar, an Agriculture School at Amona. Both deserve Goa’s highest praise and appreciation!
Today agriculture has diversified its sectors from its original paddy, horticulture, coconut tree plantations. As there are hundreds of computer applications so also today agriculture offers a wide variety of jobs in different sectors of the same: from paddy to horticulture, apiculture, sericulture, floriculture, etc etc. Floriculture is very much in demand today. It can be carried out very profitably in Goa and can be even export oriented. Beans, pulses, cereals and millets also form part of agriculture and can yield good returns. Large scale cultivation of medicinal herbs and plants can also bring rich dividends to farmers. Seasonal crops such as Kharif and Rabi, Maize, Cashew, Mango, Cocum, arecanut trees, banana plantations and spice cultivations can afford good prices for the agriculturists. Coconut plantations can be intensified and the full tree can be utilised from palm to roots. Coconut tree alone offers multiple applications: culinary use and oil including virgin oil, extraction of Toddy (Sur), Feni and wines. Thatched palm leaves are used in covering shacks and its leaves in preparing stick brooms, its shells to prepare medicines, its trunk as timber for home roofing and carpentry uses, its coir for coir industry. Sugarcane plantation also is very profitable one.
Greenery enhancing trees such as rain forest trees, ficus trees (Nonorki), Surang, Mimusops elengi (Onvllam), Jambul trees as well as Teak wood trees can be planted along the highways. This itself can give jobs to hundreds of people and solve to some extent the problem of unemployment.
Fishing activities in new methods like prawn, crab farming can be carried out by farmers with huge profit.
In conclusion I would say: “Let all of us re-dedicate ourselves to revive our agriculture.” Israel which is one of the most advanced States in the world agriculture today, and from where the Old Testament of the Bible has come to us, has in the Book of Psalms, texts with regard to their agriculture milieu, in Ps 126: 6: “They go out, they go out, full of tears, carrying seed for the sowing: they come back, they come back, full of song carrying their sheaves.”
