IT'S BACK TO THE FIELDS FOR GOANS

With the onset of the first monsoon rains, Goans in villages are getting back to their fields, ploughing, de-weeding and readying the soil for the traditional paddy sowing season. Ploughs drawn by a pair of cattle, men and women manually digging with spades to deweed and loosen soil are becoming a common sight in fields along roadsides. In Santa Cruz, the entire family of Lorenz along with a few workers were busy in the patch of paddy fields which he says the family has been cultivating for well over five decades. Paddy cultivation in Goa is generally small-scale and continues to employ traditional methods of ploughing, sowing and reaping. Except for a handful of farmers who cultivate commercially, the bulk of the land under paddy cultivation is by small-holding farmers mostly for self consumption. Although the state government's agriculture department has been making efforts to increase land under cultivation, high labour costs coupled by the fragmentation of land-holdings has impeded the efforts for a green revolution.