Panaji: The comunidade of Varca is planning to revive its fallow paddy fields by replicating the community farming model adopted successfully in neighbouring Chinchinim.Solano Furtado, comunidade president and panch member of Varca panchayat, said, “The Varca comunidade was defunct for 24 years. The only wealth we have is fields. Under the Tenancy Act, we saw many people purchasing these fields, so we decided that the first step to stop this is to engage in community farming.”According to villagers, less than 10% of the agricultural land in Varca is under cultivation as farming is no longer considered economically viable. The comunidade held a special meeting on Sunday morning to discuss ways to revive fallow fields. Around 60 farmers attended the meeting, where they discussed Kharif and Rabi cultivation as well as agriculture department subsidies for various farming requirements.“There are rising labour costs, stray cattle straying into fields, and fragmented landholdings to consider, for which we need cooperative strategies, large-scale mechanization, and perimeter fencing to bring abandoned land back into cultivation,” Furtado said.Margao zonal agriculture officer Sherrif Furtado said 188 Krishi cards have been registered in Varca over the years, but only around 60% of farmers are actively cultivating paddy.Progressive farmers from Chinchinim shared their experience of overcoming the initial challenges of organising community farming in the village.“We have overcome these problems through mechanization and by consolidating land into large continuous tracts,” progressive farmer Agnelo Furtado said. “To make mechanized community farming viable, you need a minimum combined area of at least 10 hectares. In Chinchinim, through collective effort, we have now crossed over 100 hectares — roughly 10 lakh square metres — of active, combined cultivation.”The Chinchinim model has also been adopted in other South Goa villages. Navelim has brought 25 hectares of previously fallow land under cultivation, while Asolna has covered around 10 hectares through similar cooperative farming practices. Sarzora has also maintained around 10 hectares of revived fields.The Varca comunidade is now working on a roadmap centred on three measures: mobilising farmers into groups of at least 10 landowners to pool individual plots into viable operational blocks, constructing perimeter fencing to prevent damage by stray cattle, and deploying shared modern machinery for tilling, planting and harvesting to reduce dependence on manual labour and keep costs manageable.“By combining the historical land-management framework of the comunidade with modern mechanized farming techniques, Varca can hopefully join the expanding network of South Goa villages converting idle fields back into productive agricultural land,” Agnelo Furtado said.
