Goa's agro-climatic condition makes it best suited for tropical vegetables. In Canacona taluka the agriculture department has targeted 20 hectares in the kharif as well as current rabi season for vegetable farming.
In order to boost cultivation, SHGs and individual farmers have been roped in to raise different varieties in 10 hectares allocated for vegetables during rabi season. Farmers under the National Vegetable Initiative for Urban Cluster (NVIUC) have been successfully growing different vegetables like Knol-Khol (nabh), cabbage, radish (mullo), chilies, bitter gourd, ridge gourd, gonsalim, cucumber, amaranthus, tambdi bhaji, cluster beans, chidki- midgi, bhendi, palak, onion, brinjal, alsando, cauliflower, coriander, watermelon, etc.
In order to protect the crops from insects and other pests, the government is providing sticky traps. "Training is imparted to farmers and constant supervising and inspection of the crop is done by officers," says Shivram Gaonkar, zonal agricultural officer. Farmers are part of the scheme through collective farmer's societies.
Vegetable cultivation is together with vermi-composting. As many as 85 SHG under Gaondongrem-Cotigao Farmers Cooperative Society produce organic compost. The compost is then used on large scale for vegetable and other crops. The scheme has been implemented under National Horticulture Mission.
The size of one compost unit is 30x8x2 feet set in HDPE vermin-beds. Total of 90 composting units are owned by the 85 SHGs from three village panchayats. The basic ingredients used in the units are cow dung and leaf moulds and earthworm (Eudrilus Eugeniae species.)
The 90 units produced over 250 tones of organic compost during the last two years which was sold out in open market and which in fact faced higher demand than chemical fertilizers. Per kilogram of compost costs about Rs 10-14. Farmers have been given license to sell the finished product as per government norms. Several co-operative societies have purchased sealing machines for packaging the produc. The quoted rate is Rs 300 per bag of 20 kgs..
Recently Manthan SHG of Kuskem, Cotigao opted on a trial basis vermi-compost for brinjal, chilies, cluster beans and bottle-gourd and discovered three times more yield than with normal manure. Of the 85 SHGs under vegetable cultivation, about 45 of them opted for vermi-compost and now this season the number is expected to be higher. Subsidy available for plastic vermi units is Rs 5,000 per unit while for the permanent compost unit the subsidy is Rs 30,000. The plastic units has a life of just three years so many SHGs have shown interest to go for permanent structures where the vermi-wash can be collected and fed to the plants as nutrient. . One of the progressive farmers of Gaondongrem SHG informed that their group had the highest turnover to the tune of more than two tons. Another farmer Prasad Purso Velip, Poinguinnim and Amey Puranik have produced vegetables on a large scale last season using vermi-compost and now this rabi season they are determined to use it further. Gaonkar added that, training is imparted by ICAR, Old Goa while subject matter specialist agronomy (North) and the technical knowhow has been provided by ZAO staff. Farmers have expressed happiness over this new venture and hope to yield more through several crops using compost.
Another progressive farmer, Ajit Pai, Khawat,Poinguinim, has about 18 units of vermi-composting of the size 12"x4"x2" each unit and he gets three tons per month from which the income is about Rs 30,000 per month. Pai tells that vermi-compost is a natural, odorless, aerobic process and much different from traditional composting. Earthworms ingest waste then excrete casts - dark, odourless, nutrient- and organically rich, soil mud granules that make an excellent soil conditioner. Earthworm casts are a ready-to-use fertilizer that can be used at a higher rate of application than compost, since nutrients are released at rates that growing plants prefer.
Vermi-casting can be done on a small scale by home-owners with household organic wastes or on a large-scale with manure or by the food industry using organic wastes such as fruit and vegetable cull materials. Through proper design, vermi-casting is a method of waste handling and turning organic wastes into casts takes 22-32 days, depending on density of waste and earthworm maturity (regular composting requires 30-40 days, followed by 3-4 months curing).
Vermi-cast does not need curing, but fresh casts undergo two weeks of nitrification where ammonium transforms to nitrate.