By H R Prabhudessai
The statement from Agriculture Minister Vijai Sardesai that the Goan farmers need to change their mindset is a welcome one. This sends out a clear signals that the government attaches due importance and a sense of urgency to meet the target set by the Prime Minister of doubling farmer’s income by 2020.The statement may or may not have the desired corrective action from the stakeholders to give up their rather lethargic and pessimistic attitude and work towards the common goal set out by the PM. The Directorate of Agriculture with its fleet of officers and grassroots level extension functionaries and the infrastructure available at its disposal and command, would do well to focus on single point agenda and that is to raise the productivity of crops like rice, pulses, groundnut, millets as well the various horticultural crops. Simultaneously, other schemes and subsidies may go on as usual. They need to reach every village through massive campaigns with slogan of ‘Doubling the yields’ of farm enterprises which also includes dairy, animal husbandry as well as fisheries. Since the Directorates already has digitalisation of farmer’s data , this is a achievable task.
During my career in the Department of Agriculture and ICAR, I have sensed or rather come across this negativity and sense of pessimism on part of the farming community towards agriculture. It is also pleasing to note that the government plans to have an ‘Integrated Institution for Agriculture’ in years to come. One only hopes that it would not be duplication of what the KVKs and ICAR Institution are doing at present. But will these political statements be able to double the farmer’s income by 2020? I do not think so unless a mission mode approach is initiated right away before the present rice crop is harvested in October.
In my previous article, (Herald, August 3) I had highlighted some of the factors which would need consideration for the planners and executors, if at all we wish to meet the herculean task of doubling farmer’s income in 900 days from now. One of them was the per unit productivity of various crops that are being cultivated in Goa which is far below the National averages of these crops. Traditional rice cultivation in Goa faces several socio-economic constraints like fragmented land holdings and absentee landlordism, faulty legislation, costly and non-availability of farm labour, reluctance of youth to take up farming as a vocation, lack of co-operative farming efforts to name a few and the lack of awareness regarding new technology. As a result, we see rice being cultivated only as a sustenance activity rather than a profit-making enterprise. The problem is further compounded because of lack of incentives to this sector in comparison to other sectors and increasing pressure from the real estate lobby for conversions.
Agriculture sector in Goa is a sector which is on a very low ranking with only 16% population depending on it. For doubling farmer’s income, we need to take a wholistic approach to rice and rice-based cropping system with proper and systemic planning of crop sequence in rice lands. During my career as an agronomist in Krishi Vigyan Kendra I have worked out a cropping system for a rice farmer which can fetch him handsome returns from rice followed by groundnut and then followed by an important pulse crop of short duration like green gram (moong).
However, the tragedy is that a majority of farmers from Goa have monocropping with fertile rice land kept fallow during rabi and summer season. The main reason for this is the mind set of farmer, lack of seeds in time, stray cattle menace and increasing labour cost and its availability. Many socioeconomic factors like stray cattle menace, absentee landlordism, non-availability of labour of lack of mechanisation, ie seed cum fertilizer drill are some of the reasons the farmers shy away from venturing in legume crops like pulses and groundnut which have huge potential in Goa and can be grown organically. Technologically, it is possible to double farmers annual income three to four folds if proper cropping system is adopted by rice farmer.
My second factor was that of labour engaged in agriculture. It is time the government popularises the use of power tiller or tractor drawn or even bullock drawn manure and seed dispensing seed drills at the panchayat level which can enable the farmer to have easy access to these labour saving machinery and create large scale demonstrations in all villages to take up cultivation of pulses like green gram along with locally grown ‘alsando’. The task of mass multiplying the seed of alsando selection ‘Goa 1’ has to be taken on a war footing and in a big way. The Directorate of Agriculture needs to strengthen the programme on rice with a mission mode approach to double the productivity of rice and also pulses and oilseeds (groundnut) which is an achievable task. It would be rather easy to focus on these crops and engage the extension agencies to deliver the best package of practice of rice, pulses and oilseeds which has the potential of doubling farmers yield within two seasons whereas for the horticultural crops it would be rather impossible to double the existing per unit production. In these cases, along with improved management of these crops, thrust will have to be given on value addition.
The other factor which I highlighted in my first article was that on soil nutrient content, which is directly related to mineralisation and to the crop productivity. Most of our soils lack in organic carbon which is crucial. According to many soil samples that were analysed during the period between 2011-2014 were found to contain less than 0.03 % organic carbon which is an indicator of soil fertility and ability of soil in uptake of plant nutrient. This is true in case of both rice and other crops including the horticultural crops, floriculture as well as olericulture (field of vegetable cultivation). Getting soil health cards and caliberating the fertiliser doses to specific crop should be the priority programme of the department.
The State Directorate of Agriculture and Directorate of Animal Husbandry and Fisheries will have to roll up their sleeves and take this challenge as a mission so that the fruits of this exercise yields positive results on ground instead of some guess work of throwing statistical data.
