Push for permanent market for rural ryots in urban areas

Margao MLA Digambar Kamat going round the stalls at the two-day buyer-seller meet at the Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Margao along with Agriculture Director Sandeep Faldesai, MMC Chairperson Damu Shirodkar and others.

Photo Credits: Santosh Mirajkar

MARGAO
The two-day Buyer-Seller Meet 2024 organised by the Directorate of Agriculture at the Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Margao brought a host of farmers and buyers under one roof on day one of the meeting.

The programme organised under the Centre’s Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana scheme saw both the buyers and sellers coming under a common platform to sell and purchase organically grown local agriculture produce and products.

What’s next after the two-day programme? Will the programme offer any long term marketing avenues in the urban areas for the farming community hailing from the rural countryside of South Goa district?

No doubt, the number of stalls occupied by farmers and self-help groups showed that the two-day meet helped both the buyers and sellers under one roof.

Margao MLA and former Chief Minister Digambar Kamat came out clear to take up cudgels for the farmers from the hinterland talukas for a permanent venue for marketing of the farm produce in the urban areas.

In fact, Kamat said the success of agriculture in Goa will to a large extent depend on the marketing avenues and platforms provided to the farmers, mostly hailing from the South Goa countryside.

After inaugurating the two-day meet, Kamat made a fervent plea to the Agriculture Director to make some marketing arrangements for the hinterland farmers to sell their produce in the cities. “Till the farmers get the marketing platform, we cannot say the farmers will get returns from their hard work. I am moved by their plight when I saw farmers selling their produce alongside the highways and on open drains. In Margao, we find farmers selling organic products from the footpath opposite the Margao police station,” he said.

Laying stress in marketing of the agriculture produce, Kamat said a marketing platform will give the farmers the confidence to go into big time production, thus giving a further boost for agriculture in the State.

In his address, Agriculture Director Sandeep Faldesai said the whole idea behind organising the buyer-seller meeting is to facilitate the farmers to get their produce in the urban areas and get better remuneration.

Saying that health conscious citizens are now insisting on organic products in the country and the world over, Faldesai said Goa has adopted the Central government scheme of forming 500 organic clusters across the State, with each cluster comprising of 1,000 hectares. In this context, he said the Agriculture Department provides monetary help for the farmers to purchase organic produce and manure via three instalments.

“Goa by default is an organic State with the land holdings very small. Because of the small land holdings, we have small and margin farmers who go for agriculture production for self-consumption and not for commercial exploitation,” he added.