As you ride into Rivona and zoom past the winding roads of Netravali, the weather begins to cool and the temperatures drop on a sunny day. The road is clean but the rusty trucks and unused earth moving machinery is a scare of the last decade. The dust has settled on the lack of mining here. Amidst all this in the same hills lies the 810 acre property which houses the Don Bosco Sulcorna Farm School. Since October 1986, it has been providing education to the children of Rivona, Netravali and the neighbouring hamlets in Sulcorna and Khazur. 50-years ago, this massive piece of land was donated by one Late Humberto Mascarenhas who bought the property from a public auction in the 1960s only to donate it to the Salesians.
With a motto to work with the youth, the Farm School which has residential facilities also has an agriculture center on its campus recognized by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and conducted small four day courses for farmers in the vicinity while the campus has two 1000 sq meter greenhouses for vegetables setup by the Salesians with assistance from the Goa Agriculture Department. But 2015 was a dream come true for the Salesians who have not really had smooth sailing in Sulcorna and have battled many problems from trouble from the locals to land grabbing by politicians and others, and even the government giving out mining leases on their green and fertile land which has hectares under paddy and sugarcane cultivation. Having battled all this, the Goa University, Government of Goa and ICAR gave Don Bosco Agro-Ed Complex [DBAEC] a final nod to start the Don Bosco Agriculture College offering a special 4-year B.Sc in Agriculture and the first batch is underway with 39 students of which 35 are resident students.
“This property of 810 acres by 4,000 sq. meters is the apt and ideal location for 100 percent organic crop and is a practical place for children to get a hands-on experience,” asserted Miguel Braganza, who’s worn many hats in Goa to conserve and preserve agriculture as an activity and has now moved from Mapusa to Sulcorna, 90 kms apart, six-days a week, to teach Horticulture and help Sulcorna with all the necessary paperwork to kick off the Engineering College. “We plan to have hands-on training and send our students to live in villages and work with farmers and implement a new method of agriculture or a new variant of a crop and do a proper ground study as part of research which means, Sulcorna’s initiative of graduation is to really create agriculture entrepreneurs,” explains Dr Cassy, the officiating principal and PHD in Botany who has also relocated from Carmona to Sulcorna because of her passion for agriculture.
Miguel and Dr Cassy, under the able leadership of Director, Fr Felix Serrao have one motto of teaching undergraduates agriculture and creating job givers and not job seekers.
The B.Sc currently is offered to students passing out of the Science Higher Secondary Stream with Mathematics as a main subject or the students without mathematics can opt for the course but have to pass a mathematics deficiency examination within the first few months of joining the course.
Miguel explains to us that a B.Sc in agriculture opens up jobs in agriculture, research and IAS positions for the graduate and is not only about becoming a farmer. Also, the advanced teaching covers study in plant pathology, botany, floriculture, horticulture, virology, dairy farming and has a special curriculum under the Ministry of Agriculture and the usual education systems of the HRD Ministry.
“Since 1984, it has been the dream of the Salesians to start an institute of this kind since we had the land and have been catering to youth and children and nurturing careers here. And we saw how agricultural land in Goa is lying fallow and vacant and how youth are turning away from agriculture, considering it unviable and hence we wanted a course like this,” explains Fr Serrao.
He asserts that this newly founded institute that will lead the way and inspire youth to take up agriculture ahead of other careers in sectors like tourism and mining will not just stop here but the college will also offer Post-Graduation and become a research center in the years to come. Currently, the innovation of the Salesians is heart-warming and just what Goa needed.
