Govt mulls law on contract farming
HERALD REPORTER
PANJIM, JULY 4
Will “contract farming” arrest the decline of agriculture in Goa? Well! At least, the State government has got into action to bring in a legislation on contract farming with the hope of making agriculture cost effective and facilitate usage of fallow land.
A committee has been constituted to look into the aspects of contract farming as provisions in the existing Goa Agriculture Produce Marketing (Development & Regulation) Act 2007 are not sufficient to promote and allow contract farming.
“The government wants to study the matter and work out requirements in the existing provisions,” Director Agriculture S S P Tendulkar told Herald.
The committee has been instructed to inspect and report on the authenticity of the status of fallow land and give its recommendations for admitting the proposal for agriculture development and for release of incentives.
One of the reasons that farmers are not able to go into full scale commercial cultivation in the State is fragmented land holdings which make any kind of cultivation unprofitable.
With farming losing its sheen as viable occupation, large tracts of land are being left fallow. Landlords prefer to keep their lands fallow rather than lose ownership of the land by giving it on lease.
But, it will not be easy to bring fallow land under cultivation until Tenancy Act is adequately amended to protect interest of landowners. So that if the land is given on contract for cultivation of any crop to other individual or a company, the rights of tenancy shall not vest with the contracting entity.
There is also a growing tendency to keep the land fallow, particularly in the areas surrounding urban locations so that it can be diverted to other uses.
Chief Minister Digambar Kamat in his budget speech 2010 had assured incentives for bringing fallow land under agriculture and proposed to provide assistance of Rs 25,000 per hector with subsidy limited to two hector area.
The State urgently needs to revive its agriculture as the production and productivity in most crops have remained static. The government in its Economic Survey 2009-10 has acknowledged that there has been a shortfall in targeted area coverage and production mainly due to non-availability and high cost of labour. Preference for white colour jobs and the availability of other job options have pushed agriculture on the back burner.
Total cropped area in the State is about 1,65,953 hector with food grains covering 59,879 hector, horticulture crops 1,01,147 hector and other crops occupy about 4827 ha.
In the last two years the department of agriculture has been laying thrust on mechanized farming by offering subsidies on purchase of machinery. The subsidy on purchase of farm machinery has been increased to 70 per cent of the cost.
