ice is the staple food crop of Goa. The crop is cultivated over an area of 42,973 hectares (ha) with a production of 1,55,818 metric tonnes (mt) annually. But the varieties of local rice that could survive the vagaries of nature and had medicinal benefits have slowly vanished and are not found anywhere in Goa now.
According to former Agriculture Director Nevil Alphonso, the main reason behind the vanishing of traditional varieties from the fields is that the farmers do not find them economical any more.
“The commonly grown varieties in Goa are Jaya, Jyoti and Karjat. Jaya is a long duration variety while Jyoti and Karjat are medium duration. The varieties, which were grown earlier mostly in the Khazan areas, are lost now. There were around seven or eight varieties grown in Khazan areas earlier and now it is not there. Only Goa Dhan is being cultivated,” Alphonso said.
Yields from those varieties are less so farmers normally go for the varieties yield from which is more. As they do not find them economical any more, the farmers have stopped growing them. Even there were more varieties of rice being grown in Goa around 20 years back but for the last 20 years only Jaya, Jyoti and Karjat are being grown.
“These varieties are being grown twice in a year while earlier only one variety of paddy used to be grown. This is happening because irrigation facilities have improved in the state after the advent of Salaulim irrigation project,” Alphonso said.
According to ICAR-Central Coastal Agricultural Research Institute, the socio-economic situations prevailing in the State and non-availability and high cost of labour, lack of mechanisation, threshing and processing facilities, including marketing infrastructure are threatening the cultivation of the major food crop in the State.
Recently, Goa Foundation Director Claude Alvares said, “Before the Green Revolution, there were around 60 varieties of traditional rice grown in Goa. Today there are only four or five varieties that are still being grown, albeit with difficulty due to the rapidly changing climate.
Highlighting the disconnect between today’s urban generation and nature, with food being consumed without knowledge of the ingredients, Alvares said, “The Adivasi or indigenous people follow agricultural and agro-ecological practices that are millenia-old, producing rice varieties that are full of nutrients and have distinct natural flavours. However, our generations suffer from ‘nature-deficit syndrome’, where we are cut off from the diversity of rice.”
“In Goa, the white rice sold in supermarkets can’t be utilised to make traditional Goan sweets, which can only be made with the traditional Goan korgut rice and other local varieties,” Alvares said.
The environment crusader added, “Today the State is making a lot of noise about protecting Goa’s biodiversity, but the damage to Goa’s rice varieties has to be placed at the door of the State itself. In 1966, the Goa Agriculture department began to introduce the so-called high-yielding varieties of rice that had been bred by Indian scientists with genes from Taiwanese rice.”
“These varieties were not suitable for Goa, and in fact, as per data available with me, the traditional Goan rice varieties outperformed the Indian varieties. But who can fight against the state? ” he said
“The new high yielding varieties were given patronage, subsidy and fertilizer support. The Agriculture department ought to have protected Goa’s rice varieties, since they performed as well. Instead, the department managed with its resources to convince Goan farmers to give up their varieties and plant the new ones. As a result, the local varieties went out of use,” Alvares said.
“We had over 60 documented varieties: for the saline soils of the khazans, for the rainfed plains, for the irrigated vaingons, and for the morod fields. But all that went with official patronage. It is only because some farmers kept planting their local varieties that these survived. Some are now on the way back,” he said.
“But in the meanwhile, we have lost much of our genetic heritage of rice. Farmers should help. People want these varieties. They are not very keen on eating white rice, which is now found in all grain shops. That rice is pure sugar and a hazard,” he said.
Xavier De Almeida, Taleigao-based farmer said, “The reason is that the old generation has passed away and the younger generation has no interest in cultivating fields. Nobody has taken keen interest in preserving the seeds of old varieties. Jaya was introduced about 40 years ago while Jyoti came around 30 years back. They are being cultivated because the yield is higher. In Taleigao, everybody used to cultivate Kenao rice but now I cannot see anybody cultivating it.”
Joyd Simoes, a Velim-based farmer said, “A lot of people are moving out of agriculture and entering other occupations which have better prospects and give higher returns. The young generation has not shown much interest in agriculture nor do they want to study about it. Korgut or Kontri varieties of rice are disappearing because of this trend.”
Now people prefer a variety of rice which can be cultivated easily. In the case of Korgut, the harvesting has to be done manually as it tends to fall down before harvest.
“We do not have advanced machines to pick them up from the ground and harvest them. Moreover, there is not much demand for these types of rice. The varieties like Jyoti and Jaya have been glorified by the people, which is also a reason behind old varieties disappearing from cultivation,” Simoes said.
“Cultivating Korgut is difficult as the seedlings are taller in size and fall down which makes its harvesting difficult. Our machines are not so advanced or developed to harvest Kontri or Korgut type of rice. We need better and advanced harvesters which can address these issues,” he said.
A senior Agriculture department official said, “Labour is the main constraint in Goa. Rice requires a lot of intensive care. It involves harvesting, threshing, and drying before it is sold in the market. The concern is how much a farmer will get in return if he or she cultivates paddy crops.”
“The investment a farmer makes and the return he gets out of it do not match. Unless the return is more than the investment, any farmer will not be ready to cultivate any particular variety of rice,” he said.
The official said earlier the varieties of paddy which were in cultivation included Damgo, Kontri, Sotti, Aasago, Belo, Kalo Belo, Didaki, Adichaki, IR 68, Annapurna, Karjat 3, IR 8 and Triguna. The varieties which are currently being cultivated by the farmers are Jaya, Jyoti and Karjat.
He said Pernem, Bardez, Bicholim, Tiswadi, Salcete, Mormugoa, Sanguem and Quepem are the talukas where rice is grown in large quantity compared to Dharbandora, Sattari, Canacona and Ponda talukas.
Kenneth Lopes, founder of Goencho Xetkar, an agri-tech farming collective, said that there are various reasons behind the vanishing of the varieties of paddy crop.
“The people have moved away from traditional indigenous varieties because the yield was poor. The farmer needs a better yield. So gradually ryots moved towards high yielding varieties. This was the primary reason. Then over a period of time as the cultivation of indigenous variety was poor, we started losing them one by one. It was a low yielding variety of indigenous grain,” Lopes said.
“We have started growing indigenous variety called Bali. We procured the seed from a local farmer in Bicholim. The experiment is on because we would also like to revive the indigenous variety. But it will take some time. The problem is that there are only a handful of varieties which we can get and there is a problem in getting the seeds. We will welcome any farmer who can give us good quality seeds which we can cultivate in a suitable area,” he said.
Lopes said the revival will require a sustained and collective effort from everyone including the government and technology has to move together with the traditional forms of farming.
“We will have to show the child that through the mobile itself he can get into the field. This is the only way to take him to farming. It will have to be shown to them how the same technology will take him to the field,” he said.
Fr George Quadros, Don Bosco Society, Loutolim fondly known as the “Paddy Man of Goa”, for promoting mechanised farming in Goa, said, “Planting of rice is a laborious and expensive task. Sometimes it is also dependent on the whims of nature. Therefore, production matters. The new varieties are high yielding. The farmer automatically gives up the old varieties because it is not feasible to cultivate them and there is no profitability in that, except keeping those varieties alive.”
But even to keep those varieties alive, there must be intervention from the government by offering some sort of incentives to those who take the pain to grow them.
“The old varieties had medicinal value as they were highly organic but finally it comes to economics. Some old varieties are tall and because of that they collapse during excessive rain ending up 50 per cent of the crop getting lost in water. This is the reason that slowly the farmers have given up growing the old varieties of rice,” he said.