Panaji: Chief minister Pramod Sawant said the agriculture department will soon launch ‘Goa Fresh’ and ‘Goa Organic’ initiatives, with QR codes on vegetables and local produce to let buyers track the full journey of their buy from farm to market, including farmer details and where the crop was cultivated. He said consumers currently purchasing vegetables from Belagavi often do not know the source or what fertilisers were used, and added that shifting to local and organic produce would reduce diseases in Goa over time.Sawant was speaking while distributing seedlings to farmers under the Indo-Israel Agriculture Centre initiative, with a farm set up at Codar, Ponda, a year ago. He said govt has invested Rs 12 crore in the Indo-Israel Centre of Excellence at Codar to provide quality planting material, modern technology and technical support to farmers across the state. He said the tie-up includes experiments such as growing produce through water conservation and aims to supply quality seedlings locally, as seedlings currently bought from nurseries often come from outside Goa and can bring plant diseases.“We often try to find out the causes of our sicknesses only after we take ill. But if we do the work before we eat, diseases will not affect us in the first place. People should start eating quality produce,” the chief minister said.He urged Goans to eat quality produce, to grow their own vegetables in villages or buy from local farmers, and not to bargain with farmers, comparing it to fixed pricing in malls. “None asks about the quality of the food produce we are buying and the effort that has gone behind it,” he said.Sawant further said that the state is distributing 12 lakh marigold saplings and that Goan farmers could collectively earn Rs 1 crore during the upcoming festive season if they work systematically over the next two months. He said he has asked zonal agricultural officers to connect local growers, including flower producers, with buyers to reduce dependence on imports. He said similar efforts are being made for fisherfolk and dairy farmers.
