The latest amendment to ‘The Goa Agricultural Tenancy Act’ to provide for ‘contract farming’ in Goa assumes much significance in context of the United Nations dedicating the Year 2014 as the ‘International Year for Family Farming’ (IYFF). Though news reports claim that the latest amendment to the Goa Agriculture Tenancy Act has brought much cheer to the farming fraternity, it would be prudent to exercise caution, particularly when there is no participatory approach adopted by the Government before rolling out such policies and enacting laws.
The motive behind enacting such laws, which so to say, gets pulled out of the hat and hurriedly enacted without scope for public debate, usually get manifested much later, but not before the damage has already been done.
In the run up to this amendment there has been a systematic propaganda that small land holdings are not profitable and in fact such a view has been reflected in the Government’s schemes which have almost nothing for those who possess less than one acre of land.
The latest piece-meal approach adopted by the Goa Government to encourage growth of agriculture in the State could well turn out to be a futile exercise. The Goa Agriculture Tenancy Act was probably just a fraction of the problem that actually triggered a slump in agriculture activity. It is more the archaic Land Revenue Code and the TCP Act coupled with the lack of visionary and holistic development policies in Goa which have been the primary cause for decline of agriculture. Indiscriminate industrialisation, destruction of eco-systems and increased pollution levels have also had a direct impact resulting in low agriculture yields, increased investment costs and human resource crisis.
Therefore, it is necessary to debate whether the latest move by the Goa Government to revive agriculture by facilitating contract farming is in sync with the current global approach of sustainable agriculture for combating hunger and poverty through promotion of small agriculture land holders and family farming? With the latest mechanised mode of farming being controlled by a bunch of powerful local politicians, is an agriculture mafia fast emerging to pressurize the small time farmer into contracting his land for industrialized farming?
