Impact of Agricultural Changes in Goa

INTRODUCTION

Etymologically the term Agriculture is derived as follows – ‘Agri’ means field or soil and ‘culture’ means the care of or tilling. It includes all such human efforts as are conducive to the quick and better growth of vegetables and animal products for the benefit of man. In the last fifty years of liberation, the state has undergone and witnessed in the agriculture sector. At the time of liberation, nearly two third of the population was involved in agriculture as their primary occupation. Paddy was the predominant crop of the state followed by cashew and coconut. The situation now changing and today we have cashew nut which is cultivated in nearly 55,000 Ha with paddy 31,000 Ha. The cultivation of horticulture crops nowadays are gaining importance due to the good returns, lower risk and tolerance of these crop for part time farming are greatly influence.

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The state of Goa is providing assistance to agriculture at all levels to provide substantial returns to rural people.The Agriculture Department gives assistance for farmer from land preparation of the extent of marketing of the produce. The Department of Agriculture with is head quarter at Tonca, Panaji implements developmental programme through zonal agriculture offices located in each talukas level and training center at district level. Laboratories are set up at district level to test the soil where soil health cards are issued for major and micro

Goa being a progressive state, the farmers face tremendous shortage of labor who could work on the fields . The dependence of machine for activities in agriculture is emerging trend. Goan farmers having small land holding and nearly 80% of farmers own less than 1 ha of land. The government preferred smaller machine to farmers and provides financial assistance for such machines.

In the state of Goa agriculture is one of the most important economic activity. . Lies between the Arabian Sea and the Western Ghats, to feed its own people Goa faces problems . The coastal areas are exposed to salinity and not suitable for agriculture , while the inland areas are not productive enough. So for its day-to-day needs of agricultural produce like vegetables, Goa is dependent on Karnataka and Maharashtra for its day to day needs of agricultural produce like vegetables. However, approximately one-third of the total land in Goa falls under forest areas and yields substantial profits.

• The government, however, has done much to improve and develop agriculture in Goa to make it more productive, thus enabling the farmers to get a better return for their labor. Rice and fish being the staple diet of the people, paddy becomes the prominent crop in the scenario of agriculture in Goa. The important crops, besides paddy, are maize, ragi, bajra, jowar and pulses. Cash crops like mango aerecanut jackfruit, banana pineapple, cashew nut coconut, are also grown in abundance. Cashew is one of the most important crop in Goa. One kind of intoxicating drink called Feni is produced from cashew. Sugarcane cultivation has been recent phenomena and a sugar factory has also been set up in Goa. There are different variety of mangoes are grown in Goa. Some of the famous Mango varieties are mancurade, mussarade, fernandine, xavier, alfonsa, colaco. Kapo (hard) and Rasal (soft) are two varieties of jackfruit are grown here. The vegetables that are commonly part of the agriculture in Goa are lady’s fingers, radish, brinjol, pumpkins, cucumber, drumsticks, breadfruit and different varieties of gourds. Sweet potatoes, chillies, onions are also available in Goa.
• Paddy being the principal crop of Goa, it is grown in two seasons, namely Kharif or sorod and the rabi or vaingan. The crops which are grown in monsoon are called the kharif crops and the winter crops are called rabi crops. The main sources of irrigation for winter crops are the nallahs, rivers and streams, tanks, wells and canals. Crops which are grown in the Kharif season consist of paddy, ragi (locally called nachani) and some pulses. Crops grown in the rabi season are comprised of paddy, pulses like horse-gram (kulith), black gram (udid), a variety of beans and some vegetables.

However even though one fourth of the population is sustained by agriculture in Goa, it contributes to only 15 to 16 percent to the income of the state. Due to rapid urbanization the availability of agricultural land is reducing.

In Goa, shifting cultivation is locally known as ‘Kumeri’ and it is this form of agriculture that is largely responsible for producing Goa’s output of nachne, other millets and pulses. However, agriculturally trained farmers, scientists or foresters condemn kumeri cultivation as ecologically damaging and sustained effort have been made by the forest and Agriculture department to discontinue such cultivation. There are basically 5 stages in Kumeri cultivation. Felling an area of forests, fixing the dead vegetation, planting or sowing seeds without the plough, weeding; and eventually harvesting. Though virgin forests give higher yields, kumeri cultivation prefers a secondary forest for cultivation. This is because clearing primary forest is quite an dangerous task, requiring more manpower and demanding a larger drying period for the felled vegetation. In Goa, Kumeri cultivation became a problem for 2 reasons. First, during Portuguese regime, large chunk of hilly areas have been declared as forests and later by the Goa government thus reducing drastically the Kumeri cycles of the tribals. Secondly forest Department cleared felled forest with in the non-protected areas and converted these to monoculture species of eucalyptus and teak, thereby affecting forest availability to Kumeri cultivation. The elimination of Kumeri cultivation has led to a drastic decline in the availability of millets like nachne which have remained the traditional diet of the economically unprivileged population in Goa. Goa being a small state in area, agricultural land is sometimes used for nonagricultural purposes. Large areas are used to build bus-stands, highways, buildings etc. Being situated in the coastal belt, the real estate industry in Goa has grown much higher during the last few years and the land prices are soaring high, thereby luring the farmers to keep their land fallow and then sell it off for a huge market price. It is also found that the increase in residential area has led to increased dumping activities which may include mud and rubble. These activities lead to rain water clogging instead of it rushing into the sea. This factor too keeps the farmers from cultivating their lands and they prefer to keep it fallow as improving the drainage can be a very costly affair. Farming in Goa is mainly dependent on the arrival of monsoons. The quality and quantity of cropd by timely required rains . At times the farmers are helpless with the late arrival of monsoons which in turn leads to delayed sowing and thus low yield. At times there is a dry spell which also affects the growth of crops. All this calls for better irrigation facilities. The fact that tourism industry in Goa has flourished, has had its implications on agriculture too. The tourism industry gives more lucrative offers to the present day youth, thus providing them with regular employment. And this aspect leads to the next problem faced by farmers i.e. availability of labour and high labour cost. With the younger generation not wanting to soil their hands in the land and looking out for white collar jobs and green pastures overseas, shortage of labour has led farmers to hire labour from other states. This in turn has increased the cost of farming. The neighbouring states of Goa like Maharashtra and Karnataka have abundant of 4 agricultural activity and thus the agricultural products are low priced. Thus importing these products works out much cheaper than cultivating them.

LITERATURE REVIEW

According Olekar Ramesh (2008) agriculture has been one of the important part of our economy. There are more than 60% of our people depend upon agriculture for their livelihood. It is a way of life, a tradition; agriculture will continue to be central to all the strategies for socio-economic development of the country. Rapid growth of agriculture will not only ensure continued food security but also aid in growth in industry and the GDP. To maintain growth in agriculture credit plays an important role. The amount of agriculture credit given by the bank to the farmers has increased from over the year. This has been an impressive development in banking credit sector, considering the fact that there are several problems like accessing credit for agriculturist and problem providing loan by the bank.

Chand Ramesh et. al (2010) talks about agriculturalproduction and farm income in India involve several risks. One and only mechanism available to safeguard against production risks is crop insurance. For eg.the scheme called as NationalAgriculturalInsuranceScheme(NAIS) operating in the country and has suggested several modifications to make crop insurance more effective. But the coverage of this scheme in terms of crop area, number of farmers and value ofagriculturaloutput is very small.To make agriculture risk management more effective the present level of coverage have to be improved. Such an improvement has financial implication and will have an impact on current insurance practices.Therefore it requires renewed effort on the part of the government in terms of designing appropriate mechanism and providing support in terms of finance.,to agricultural insurance.

Kumar and Sameer(2009) focuses on the implementation Kishan Credit Card (KCC)Schemein India.The Government of India consulted with the Reserve Bank of India, and National Bank forAgriculturaland Rural Development to establish KCC. Providing credit support to the farmers through banking system timely and adequately manner is the objective of thescheme. Advantages of thescheme include a full year credit requirement, simplified documentation, and availability of credit for 3 years.

Sharma and E. Kumar (2008) reports regarding agriculture related concerns of different Bt cotton farmers those who are not eligible for any benefit under India’s Finance Minister P. Chidambaram’s Rs. 60,000-crore farm loan waiverscheme. The farmer name Gurram Adi Reddy, hold a view that the real issues behind there non elegibility for any benefit under waver scheme is lack of adequate water power, the timely availability of inputs and fair, remunerative and consistent prices for the produce.

Rajkumar P K et. al (2009) talks about of onion and maize growers who have been under Market Intervention Scheme(MIS) in the state of Karnataka by selecting two districts of the state. Dharwad and Gadag. Due to several problems such as procedural complexities the scheme has been delayed payments and the requirement of meeting Fair Average Quality (FAQ) stipulations for the crops. It has also been found that if the procourement centres as farther it is more likely that farmer to go in the open market sale. The study suggest that simplification of procedure making timely payment and increasing the number of procurement centres to cover larger number of farmer under Market Intervenion Scheme This study talk about an important innovation in providing healthcare for the rural poor: the Yeshasvini Health InsuranceSchemefor rural farmers and peasants in Karnataka. This is one of the world’s largest health insuranceschemefor the rural poor, theschemestarted in 2003. So it is designed in a such a manner that overcome several obstacles to providing health security for rural populations. In the the second year, the scheme covered about 2.2 million widely dispersed peasant farmers for surgical and out patient care for a low annual premium of approximately US$ 2.

According Jana and Sebak Kumar(2011) in India more than 50% are dependent on agriculture for their livelihood. Still Indian economy are agrarian economy.60% of the rainfed areas without any source of irrigation.And majority of these areas are covered by marginal farmers and rural poor. Due to lack of irrigation facilities small and marginal farmers are are at risk. There is need for sustainable and innovative forms of irrigation. For eg innovative experiment is happa experiment which is viewed as Integrated Natural Resource Management( INRM) emphasizing both water and soil management.

According K. N. Rao(2002) inIndia nearly 2/3rd of the population depends onagriculturefor their livelihood andagricultureis highly depend upon nature, crop insurance has to play the role of a vital institution. Crop insurance alone cannot increase productivity or by providing finance both should increase same time .During the VIIth Five-year plan period, the Comprehensive Crop Insurance Scheme was introduce. Though the scheme has shortcomings, farmers received nearly 6 times the premium as claims, but only 5% of the total farming community were covered under this scheme. The National Agricultural InsuranceScheme(NAIS), which replaced CCIS w.e.f. 1999 is an improved version. Just like in other parts of the world the crop insurance programs in India is supported and financed by governments.

According Jennifer(2009) In1985 crop insurance scheme is started offering by the government of India with the Comprehensive Crop InsuranceScheme.In the recent years NationalAgricultureInsuranceScheme replaced by comprehensive Crop Insurance Scheme. Though it is considered NAIS as an improvement over CCIS it is also flawed scheme just as the CCIS.It is found that Government crop insurance scheme have failed worldwide but India seems to have this reality.

S.K. Mishra(2007) claims that rice, wheat, maize, millets and pulses are the major food crops of India where as major cash crops include Oilseeds, sugarcane, cotton, jute & mesta, and potatoes. Minor cash crops include Tobacco, chillies, ginger, onion, turmeric, tapioca, sweat potatoes, etc. Plantationcrops includetea, coffee and rubber. 3/4th of the gross area under cultivation is cereals and pulses. This clearly shows that there is increaseinthe percentage area under thecashcropsis discernible. Less than 1% area is under Plantation crops. Among the foodcrops, wheat has highest growth rate followed by maize, rice and pulses. Millets having negative growth rate area.

J K Sachdeva(2005) talks about cash crop like tea, coffee, spices, oilseeds, cotton and cashew . They are traditional export items, and India exports 50% cash crops of its total agricultural produce. These items are ready for consumption after some value addition. In industries these items are used as raw material in food. The commodities can be ranked highinhierarchy of demands after food items like wheat and rice. The consumer economic status plays a significant roleintheir demand. The paper analyses the exports of tea, coffee, spices, cotton, oilseeds and cashew byIndia, the growth in the exports after the coming of economic reforms, calculates the changes in export and discusses the relationship between exports, imports and production.

According to Richa Kumar(2014) that farmers have limited information and many middlemen create problem in getting higher price for their produce . She gives the example of soybean farmersinMalwa, centralIndia, which is acashcropthat connects farmers to global consumers, this article argues that the very expectation of disintermediationinthe soybean supply chain is misleading.India’s positioninthese global networks puts farmers and intermediariesinMalwainthe position of price receivers: they are unable to influence the global price of soybean or manipulate its local priceinany way.Inthis context, providing price information has negligible impact on the final price obtained by farmers. To bring about potential changes there is a need to find out the waysinwhich power is exercised by various actorsinthe marketplace

According Gulati, et . al (2002)Riceis the major food crop of almost 70% of the world’s poor who are stayinginAsia, where more than 90% of worldriceproduction and consumption takes place.Ricetrade liberalization therefore has tremendous implications for poverty. The worldricemarket of the world has been imbalanced partly due to intervention. Poor countries such as Thailand, Vietnam, andIndia not protecting ”rice sectors, the rich countries of East Asia (Japan and Korea), Europe, and the United States heavily support theirriceproducers. This leads to great diversityindomesticriceprice levels, with very high pricesinthe latter countries and very low pricesinthe former. Trade liberalization would thus resultsinflows from these poorer Asian countries to East Asia and Europe. This will be positive effect on poverty, where price of producer will increase. It will also bring about second-round effects (wages, employment, and investment)inexporting countries.

Parshuram Samal & Rabinarayan Patra(2012) focuses on production lossesinricedue to natural calamities like drought, flood and cycloneinOdisha during period of(1965-66 to 2008-09) by using secondary data. It also tells the coping strategies adopted byfarmerson the basis of primary data collected from 100 affected samplefarmers. The result show heavy losses in riceproduction in calamity years. To earn additional income and smoothen consumption spending in the calamity years coping strategies used by farmers were Migration and shifting to wage workinthe construction sector. Given the impossibility of preventing the occurrence of natural calamities, it is possible to argue that a greater allocation of funds forriceresearch for developingricevarieties is useful to tackle various calamity situations and generation

Sathishka k and P. A.Rego(2013) studied about Agriculture in Dakshina Kannada. This paper studies the major trends of agriculture sector in Dakshina Kannada District and also examines the crop diversification in Dakshina Kannada District. Dakshina Kannada is primary an agriculture district of karnataka state. More or less 60% of population of district depends on agriculture for their livelihood. Dakshina Kannada has replaced food grains with non food grains crops like rubber, areca nuts, cashew nuts. The writer concludes by saying that urban migration of agricultural labor and urbanization led to the diversification.

According D. N. Patil (2010) It is now understood that the changes in the institutional credit is important factor to bring about development in the farm sector. This is particularly true in areas which could not participate in the process of development. There is an urgent need to increase the institutional credit in the agriculral credit. Therefore to reduce the regional imbalance, new bank branches should be open in rural areas.

Narwade S. S. et.al (2009) studied about agricultural performance in the state of Orrisa during the pre and post reform period . in the pre reform period there was decline in both area and yield growth rates. The analysis reveals that in Orissa an yield per hectare of food grain crops have received severe setback during post reform period over the pre reform period. Output of the food grain crops and instability has also significantly increased during post reform.

S. A. Sujatha (2010) studied the problems faced by farmers in the existing farming system. That all the categories of farmers facing scarcity of family labor due to involvements in non farm activities and fragmentation of land. Large number of farmers are dependent on rainfall, they are also faced with problems like lack of transportation and marketing facilities.