VIKANT SAHAY
vikant@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: The cashew production in Goa had dropped down drastically by over 50 per cent. The farmers and agriculture experts blame it on the recent climatic changes and unseasonal rains.
“This is the worst year ever for cashew production in Goa and it for the first time in the State. The unseasonal rains and high temperature and storms have reduced the yield of cashew by more than 50 per cent on an average. In some areas it has reduced by nearly 70 per cent,” said Nevil Alphonso the Director of Agriculture to Herald.
He added that some cashew trees are still flowering but they cannot be sure whether that will bear fruits or not. “Last year cashew production was recorded as 27,366 tonnes in Goa and this year it is likely to go down by 50 per cent but the actual figure we will get to know by end of June,” said Alphonso.
He further said that the Department has received requests for compensation from about 50 cashew farmers. “According to the Shetkari Aadhaar Nidhi Scheme we will be giving them the compensation of Rs 40,000 per hectare at the maximum. It depends on the type of crop too. Earlier it was Rs 25,000 per hectare which has been increased by the present government,” said the agriculture director.
President of the Goa Cashew Manufacturers Association, Rohit Zantye, who is also a partner in Zantye Cashews said, “The crop was late due to rains in January and high temperature in mid-March and these climatic changes have directly affected the production of cashew. Our only hope is that we see some cashew trees are still flowering but we will get to know about the yield only after 20 days,” said Zantye.
Cashew farmer Kiran Shirodkar said,“This year in the beginning it was bout for Rs 120 per kg and then with shortage of stock the price went up to Rs 145 which is still short of earlier rates.”
Sandip Sawant from Sarvan, a third generation distiller and a cashew farmer said, “I used to produce around one tonne of cashew but this year we barely had about 300 kilograms.”
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Bicholim farmers, distillery owners bleed heavy losses
BICHOLIM: Cashew growers and the distillery owners from Bicholim have expressed concern over the low production. “Usually, we get labourers well in advance and even this year we did the same. However, this year the production of cashew nuts has fallen due to which we have incurred losses. his year there is only 20 per cent production and we have to pay the labourers their full amount” complained Prashant Malvankar, who is into cashew nut business. There are some cases where they have installed the distillery but these have not yet started with the production of ‘urrak’ and feni, said Dinesh Mandrekar. “The distilleries have run almost dry this year and there is very less production of cashews. The government should come up with some subsidy as we would incur huge losses this year,” said Mandrekar.
