Goa government proposes six-pronged strategy to revive farming

Goa Agriculture Minister Vijai Sardesai has proposed a six pronged strategy, including setting up of floriculture estates, to revive farming activity in the coastal state.
Sardesai while speaking on the floor of the House today said the state is taking ahead Prime Minister's dream of doubling the income of farmers by 2022.
"Our focus is on doubling the income of farmers by 2022 which is also the mission of Prime Minister. For that we need to take the steps. So the nature of farming has changed from production centric to income centric," the minister said.
Sardesai said the reforms that the central government has been talking about have been already implemented in the farming sector.

"But still the youngsters do not want to do farming. This is a challenge to transform farming into serious income centric business. There is no difficulty to do it," he said.
"Our challenge is that agriculture is considered as profession of hard labour and occupation not of youth. What we need is a revolution in the farming and it is only youth who can bring about the revolution. The aim is to motivate young people and get them into farming," Sardesai said.

The minister said the state government is working on six prong strategy to revive the agriculture in the state.

He said "we have to identify micro climate zones and set up horti hub network."
"We will have to set up post harvest cold chains at the horti hubs. We have to identify top ten crops which are most remunerative in that particular micro climate," the minister added.
He said the stress also has to be given on organic farming.
"We should also develop crop demonstration areas, dissemination centre for seeds and other facilities," Sardesai said.
The minister said that on lines of industrial estates, the floriculture estates would be established in the state.
Sardesai said brand Goa would be created for the local farm produced which will be called as Born In Goa (BIG).