Miguel Braganza
The unfortunate killing of tourists and the responses it sparked have ignited a wider debate. While wars were once fought on battlefields, today they are increasingly waged in boardrooms, using economic pressure. A nation is truly free only when its citizens are free from hunger and want. The economic blockade of Portuguese Goa between 1954 and 1961 taught locals the importance of ‘Swayampurna’ or self-sufficiency, as survival demanded growing one’s own food.
Now, Pakistan seems to be facing a similar economic squeeze. India has threatened to deprive it of water and has already released surplus water into its rivers — a tactic that could lead to future scarcity.
The COVID-19 pandemic (2020–23) unexpectedly highlighted vulnerabilities in Goa’s food security, leading many to grow their own vegetables. Young agriculture graduates hosted webinars
to teach homemakers how to cultivate food at home, whether in the ground or in pots. Fr. George Quadros sdb expanded his paddy transplanting service through Goencho Xetkar, a group of young men who lost their jobs during the pandemic. Agriculture graduate Shweta Gaonkar, after working as a tissue culture lab technician, became a pioneering woman toddy tapper—now reviving coconut feni and eyeing a revival of the coconut jaggery industry.
Mechanical rice cultivation spread from Curtorim and Chinchinim to Navelim, Betalbatim, and now Benaulim, where Amancio Fernandes — known for mobilising NSS units for watershed development — leads the effort. The long-held narrative of land brokers and builders that rice cultivation is uneconomical is now being disproved in Goa’s fields. Service providers have already started taking bookings for the monsoon crop.
Mechanisation — tractors, dapog nurseries, mechanical transplanters, and combine harvesters — has been key to this revival. Rice cultivation is expanding across Goa, with youth participating in this technological upgrade. Young agriculture graduate Joyd Simoes and his brother have become major service providers in Chinchinim.
Farmers are also returning to traditional, salt-tolerant rice varieties like Korgut and Asgo, and cultivating high-value crops like black rice, which fetches up to Rs 400/kg and is suitable for diabetics. When Mankurad mangoes sell at Rs. 200 each and jackfruit at Rs 10 per carpel, claims that farming isn’t viable simply don’t hold up.
