12th of June 2011 . A day of the feast of Pentecost . This great day heralded the Formal Innauguration of the Farmers Club in our village . It was a day of Joy for our village agriculture oriented people may this Joy continue guided by the Holy Spirit for a healthy growth of the club .
The Motto of the Betalbatim Village Farmers Club (BVFC) being the need to come together as support for one another and work together to revive agriculture by overcoming the difficulties faced through mechanisation and direct marketing of the produce of the village so that farmers get a better price for their produce.
The Innauguration started of with a special mass offered for the farmers at 9.15 am. Followed by a symbolic planting of two Flowering creepers to creep on two wrought iron stands in the front facade of the church to mark the innuguration of the club . This was Blessed by Fr. Ubaldo our Parish priest and the sapplings were planted by Senior Active farmer Mr. Jose Antonio Pereira and Mr. Emerico Martires son of the village and working for the Agriculture Dept.
This was followed by a small get-together at the Social Club at 10.30am . The dignitaries present were Mr. A. J. Carvalho - Asst. Mngr. NABARD, Dr. Rajnarayan - Prog. Coordinator / Senior scientist ICAR , Mr. Rajesh daCosta - Asst Agric. Officer , Zonal Agriculture Office Madgaon , Mr. S. Gopalan - Mngr, Bank Of Baroda , Betalbatim , Mrs. Yogita Mehra from Chorao Island Farmers Club and over 50 farmers from the village.
The function started of by lighting of the tradional lamp by Mr. A. J. Carvalho followed by the other dignitaries and a senior farmer representing the other farmers. Mr. A. J Carvalho spoke about the The Farmers Club Prog. which was started in the year 1982 . We are the 70th club to be registered under this prog. in Goa. Mr. Carvalho gave an insight into the role NABARD plays to support the Club . Dr. Rajnarayan spoke on the various activities thay do to help the farmers get a good yeild and the dev. of high yeilding seeds that they make available to farmers and other reseach programmes thay conduct. Mr. Rajesh DaCosta enlightened us on the various Govt. schemes that assist to boost agriculture. Mrs. Yogita Mehra gave us their experiences of running the club programme for the last 3 years and how they had thir problems and sucess she also shared with us the marketing aspect of the local produce . Mrs. Michiko Barros gave the vote of thanks.
The function was possible and was a sucess due to the genorisity of The Social Welfare Club President , Mr. Ciriac who willing let us use the premises at no cost. The hard work put in by some of our members , also Mr. Jimmy Cota who worked getting things organised . Mr. Samson Cota compered the function with great ease and Mr. Adrian got down to capturing the memories on his camera.
Our programme is to revive the dormant agriculture in the village with the help of intensive mechanisation and help the farmers market their produce directly.We shall also emphasise on involving the youth in this programme. When rice is our staple food , it is an irony to see our paddy fields left fallow. We hope to meet our objective with the co-operation and hard work to be put in unitedly by our members.
