MIGUEL BRAGANZA
On the penultimate weekend of October, we celebrated the 82nd birthday of Alexyz, the ultimate ‘Young Man’ who was baptized as Aleixo Rafael Fernandes. He is a teacher-turned-cartoonist who started the ‘Festival of Plants and Flowers’ in 1992 so that students are exposed to the environment and get involved in growing plants. The interschool projects competition motivates the students to read, write and speak about plants. Students from the Chubby Cheeks Spring Valley High School, Pilerne, traditionally won prizes for their projects. Now their own school hosts ‘Spark’, an interschool festival and has reached the 14th edition.
This weekend, St. Britto High School, Mapusa, hosted the ‘Britto Flora 2.0’ jointly with the ‘Krishi Utsav’ of the Agricos Alumni Association. This movement is growing in more
ways than one.
Wherever Sr. Liberata Fernandes is posted as a headmistress, there are ecological activities in that school. From planting of trees in Anjuna and Vagator while she was at St. Michael’s High School, to students learning to grow rice with the farmers who were reviving rice fields that were fallow for thirty years in Navelim when she was at Our Lady of Perpetual Succour High School, to now working on rekindling the local pride in the G.I. tagged ‘Sath Shirancho Bhenddo’ ladyfingers of Jua with the students of St. Theresa’s High School, Santo Estavao, she has led it all. When the Archbishop was looking for an educator to be a member of the Diocesan Commission for Ecology (DCE-Goa), she was a natural choice. She continues to be a member for a second term in the recently reconstituted DCE-Goa, headed by Fr. Anthony Carvalho after the demise of Fr (Dr.) Bolmax Pereira earlier this year.
The growing interest in plants and organic farming among the students made it possible to convince the Government authorities that a college of agriculture in Goa was feasible. The Goa College of Agriculture (GCA)-Ela, functioning under SAMETI, since September, 2022, now has a baby sister, the Goa College of Fisheries, Daujim, that will soon be crawling with students. The College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences is also set to start the academic year at Curti in Ponda. If the Agricos Alumni Association, is assisting schools to conduct plant exhibitions and fruit shows, we can look for a whole gamut of activities when the students begin to graduate from the fisheries and veterinary colleges in Goa.
The NEP 2020 has introduced skill courses like gardening in middle school and agriculture in high school making it easier for students to think of agriculture as an option for further studies. Employment opportunities in landscaping, mechanised farming, banking, teaching in schools and even their own alma mater, has kept the demand for the course growing. There are spin-offs for people in Goa, from help in growing vegetables to troubleshooting for insect pests and disease of their fruit, nut and spice crops. Just imagine that a cartoonist’s decision to start a plant festival in a school helped change the way we think about agriculture!
