Mayem, a land synonymous with “evacuee property’, is witnessing wonderful reverse migration. The barren khazan lands have sprung into life and the farmers are back on the fields harvesting its bounty.
A plethora of government schemes have made this return to the farm possible.
There are several Khazan farmers in Mayem who had earlier abandoned farming because of unavailability of manpower and also because of the cost involved in farming but this year about 30 per cent of the farmers have once again come back to farming. Thanks to the government subsidy and the facilities provided to the farmers.
“At Haldanwadi Mula-Khazan farms were abandoned by the farmers since last 20-years because of nearby Konkan railway and also because of other reasons. The government has now provided with harvester, tractor and other subsidies on seeds which has led to increase in cultivation by about 30 per cent,” said Sakharam Pednekar a farmer from Mayem.
The farmers feel that since the cost of production has decreased there is profit in farming with the help of modern machinery.
“The new plan of cultivating seeds through nursery and then planting them into fields with the help of machinery has also become beneficial,” Pednekar said. “We are hopeful that next year still some more farmers would join farming because of the schemes.”
Kalidas Mayekar, another aged farmer from the village, had the same opinion. “There is a great difference in the cost of production. Earlier I used to spend Rs 20,000 when the work was done manually but today I spend only Rs 3000 on the machines,” Mayekar said.
Mayem Sarpanch Vishwas Chodankar has also called upon the people to cultivate their farms. “We could repair the pathways of the farms so that the farmers could be helped. The only objective of this is to promote the farmers to cultivate the farms,” Chodankar claimed.
