Anisha Francis
anisha@herald-goa.com
MARGAO: Bustling with tourism hotspots, the rapid commercialisation and concretization of Bardez has left the taluka’s villages teetering on the brink of losing their agrarian glory. Enter Sampathi Dhargalkar and Pallavi Shetye, two dynamic officers from the State’s Department of Agriculture, who have now become household names amongst the taluka’s farming community.
Through their dogged determination to make Bardez green again, these two women officers have managed to convince countless farmers and unemployed youth to take up agriculture, bringing acres of fallow farmland under cultivation.
O Heraldo spoke to multiple farmers across the taluka, who described all the ways the duo helped them rejuvenate their farms. The sheer volume of legwork these women have put in, boggles the mind. Starting their day quite early, Dhargalkar and Shetye visit farmers at their homes and fields, offering them advice and strategy, providing them with new seeds, encouraging and teaching them about exotic vegetables and new varieties of cash crops. They guide the farmers through the process of applying for subsidies and machinery on loan and when a crop fails or gets destroyed, help them apply for state support or compensation. Known for their unbeaten ‘conversion rate’, Dhargalkar and Shetye have successfully coaxed several Goan youth into trying their hand at farming, by showing them ways to diversify their income and adding value to the produce they grow. (see box)
“Thanks to the guidance and motivation provided by these two energetic ladies, we did not starve during the Covid-19 lockdown. If it had not been for them pushing us to bring our fallow land under cultivation, and also helping my wife and children create a thriving kitchen garden, we would have not had any income, or food during the pandemic,” a small-time farmer from Duler, Mapusa, told O Heraldo.
However, all the adulation somehow leaves these women, who insist on calling themselves ‘public servants’, unfazed. In her forties now, Zonal Agriculture Officer (ZAO) Sampathi Dhargalkar says she was always an outdoorsy person. As a young girl, she left the kitchen to her sister and instead followed her mother and father into their fields, where they grew a variety of spices, chillies and vegetables that would later be cooked and served in their tiny local restaurant - at a time when ‘farm-to-table’ was the norm in Goa. Every scrap of produce was used and reused at their family farm, with waste going into a biogas digester to produce methane and the slurry used to fertilise the soil. “I remember studying for my school exams sitting under a tree, while our cattle grazed around me,” says Dhargalkar , who proceeded to study agricultural science at Mahatma Phule Krishi Vidyapeeth in Maharashtra. She went on to become a teacher and taught landscaping for a few years before joining the Goa government as an assistant agriculture officer. As ZAO now, Dhargalkar is in-charge of four zones and has found a kindred spirit in her enthusiastic colleague Pallavi Shetye, who is just as driven as her mentor when it comes to the greening of Bardez. Together with a few other members of their team such as Block Technical Manager Anju Madhkar and agri officer Rahul Joundhale, the duo hosts farmers awareness workshops and training, and conducts educational seminars for school and college students. “We target young children, as they are the future and there is an urgent need to educate them about wholesome, healthy food and ways to preserve and protect our soil, an important carbon sink,” says Dhargalkar, whose team uses skits and live demonstrations to disseminate information about innovation and technology.
“Through our work, we hope to increase the area under organic cultivation with good farming practices, lest there comes a day when mankind has tons of money, but no food to eat,” she says.