UDAY SAWANT
VALPOI
When a group of youth from Mauxi village in Sattari taluka got together to venture into paddy cultivation, they were returning to an occupation which had been abandoned for nearly two decades.
Motivated by a common cause to promote paddy cultivation in their village and with the help of technology, about 30 youth are cultivating their fields since the last three months.
Mauxi village in Sattari taluka has been surrounded with fields, but for the past 19 years locals were reluctant to cultivate paddy in the area for several reasons, one of which included wild animals straying into fields and destroying crops. As a result, the land remained fallow.
However, some youth got together and recently came forward to undertake paddy cultivation in the fallow land.
“Paddy cultivation has been a traditional occupation in our village, which yielded very high production. Our senior cultivators, however, stopped cultivating paddy and two of the main reasons were destruction of crops by wild animals and water shortage,” said Krishna Gaonkar, a young agriculturist.
Gaonkar said they have relied on technology to keep wild animals away from their fields. “We have developed an instrument which runs on 12V batteries and emits a sound every 5 minutes to deter wild animals from entering our fields,” said Gaonkar.
There has been considerable interest among youth to pursue agriculture and they hope that youth from other parts of Sattari taluka would also be inspired to take up paddy cultivation.
“Now that cultivation is in process, we do hope that our activity will inspire other youth in the taluka to begin cultivating lands which have been lying fallow,” said Gaonkar.
When contacted, Zonal Agriculture Officer Prakash Raut commended the efforts of the youth from Mauxi to return to agriculture.
“It is an inspiring and commendable initiative by the Mauxi youth after a gap of 19 years. We have given them support in every possible manner. Hopefully, Mauxi village will be an ideal village in Sattari Taluka with a high yield of paddy production in the near future,” Raut added.
