PANAJI: Ten farmer groups in Goa have been granted administrative approval to carry out community farming and an amount of Rs 1.4 crore has been sanctioned by the government to the effort.
Following the sanction, 172 farmers who have 76.4 hectares of land under cultivation in the state will benefit from this scheme.
Last year only three community farming initiatives were sanctioned .
Two of these community farming groups are in Sattari, one each in Mapusa, Quepem, Tiswadi, Pernem and Bicholim, and three in Canacona.
“By way of this scheme farmers in Goa can form groups and cultivate land.
We are offering 90% subsidy under this scheme, thus enabling farmers with support,” agriculture minister Chandrakant Kavlekar said.
He added that the agriculture department will encourage more farmers to come forward and take up community farming which will help revive fallow lands in the state.
In addition to this, Kavlekar said that machinery like power tillers, weed cutters will be outsourced by the department and a file has been moved to the government to get this going.
Similarly 500 organic clusters will also be set up in about 10,000 hectares of land, he said.
“Preliminary assessment of the crop damage in fields due to Cyclone Tauktae was done by the agriculture department officials.
They have estimated a loss of approximately Rs 3crore due to crop damage.
The process of disseminating the compensation amount to the farmers will soon be taken up,” agriculture director Nevil Alphonso said.