PONDA: Talavalim villagers, who had kept their Kutamban paddy field fallow since 2002 due to rising cost of agriculture, have now decided to go back to agriculture from this year to make their village green by giving a new lease of life to their paddy cultivation.
With the initiative and encouragement from NGO “Aami Fondekar”, the villagers have formed a farmers’ association – Kutamban Shetkari Club with Gopinath Naik elected as its president.
Naik said, “Aami Fondekar president Abay Kesarkar encouraged us to form a farmers’ club to take up community farming. Farmers Jagnath Bhingi, Bhagawanth Naik, Manoj Gaonkar showed how preparations are going on in the field.”
Kesarkar said, “Now-a-days people consume rice cultivated using chemicals and many of them suffer from ailments such as diabetes etc. So, we have decided to encourage farmers to take up paddy farming using organic compost”.
“Around 52 villagers are cultivating paddy in an area spread across one lakh square metres, which is situated near the Mahalaxmi Temple, Talavalim. The farming activity was stopped in 2002 following rising costs”, he added.
The villagers have now realised that if they keep this land fallow it will become uncultivable and the youth will never learn the art of paddy cultivation. This is the reason they have formed their association to give a fresh start to community farming. They had also approached the Agricultural Department, Ponda and the officials have promised to provide necessary machinery, guidance including tilling and harvesting machinery.
The villagers have decided to take paddy crop cultivation from May. But to understand the actual difficulties, they have tilled around 5,000 square metres and will soon transplant the paddy.
The villagers hope to get positive results and if this experiment turns successful they have decided to encourage the Ponda taluka farmers to start community farming. Ponda has vast agricultural land, which is fallow due to cost and other factors.
Meanwhile, a programme will be held on January 25 at Talavalim to create awareness on community farming wherein an agricultural officer will provide guidance.
Local MLA Ramkrishna (Sudin) Dhavalikar has been invited for the function.
