Agricultural fields in the agriculture domination village of Kudne are facing a death knell due to bad water management. The water sources and the sluice gates that were lifelines for the fields in the village have degraded and completely mismanaged rendering the land completely useless for the agricultural purposes.
Farmers gathered in Kudne village on Thursday to address the issues that are being faced by the farmers of the village. A whopping 180 acres of agriculture land which used to produce 3 to 4,000 quintal of rice is now completely fallow.
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Kudne village, which once was an agriculture dominant village, is now struggling to retain its agriculture fields. Local farmers have alleged that the main reason for the degradation is the badly built sluice gate and water system.
In their memorandum to the Chief Minister and their local MLA Pramod Sawant the farmer informed that more than 50 to 60 farmers were engaged in Paddy cultivation in this tract of agriculture land. “The said field is rendered fallow from the year 2012 onwards due to continuous entry of saline water during high tide from faulty designed and installation of fiber doors/ plates sluice gate by sub Div IV, Div 1 WRD Bicholim. The fiber doors and plates used for the sluice gate is not suitable to this place considering heavy floody situation during monsoon and during high tide” informed Farmer Suresh Malik.
The fiber doors/ plates sluice gate slips down during flooding resulting incursion of saline water in the field throughout year. Due to water logging in the field from last several years, fields remained fallow resulting wild grass growth and surrounding garden crops specially coconut, banana, arecanut, vegetables. Pulses cultivation is also affected.
The field is supposed to be dry during the month of April and May after harvesting of Rabi paddy crop. So also reservoir called ‘Kolam’ which stores excess water entering from closed sluice gate during High tide is heavily silted. This reservoir helps to control saline water entering in planted Paddy crop.
Farmer Nagesh Malik said “We request Chief Minister, Government of Goa, Dr. Pramod Sawant who is also our MLA to direct WRD to install suitable sluice gate and Goa Mineral Foundation to desilt the said ‘Kolam’ which can solve problems of the farmers permanently. This will enable the large field to be brought under Paddy cultivation making village “Atmanirbhar” and villagers “Swayampurna” as far as rice, vegetables and pulses are concerned”.
Signed by farmers of Aakh Paddy fields of Kudne village the farmers have yet again reminded the Chief Minister for help to cultivate their fields during the Rabi season of 2025.
