He practises organic farming and has a nursery
called Apurbai. He used to write a weekly column in a Goan paper the
"Weekender". My dad had already told me about him so I was eager to
hear what he had to say.
His talk dealt with the consequences of using chemicals (pesticides,
insecticides, fertilizers) which he said was a recent happening in the
world. He stressed the need to return to organic farming which he said
was the only sensible way of farming. He also spoke about the role of
earthworms as friends of the farmer.
Many questions followed. Most of these dealt with problems people faced
while gardening at home. Mr Borges in his reply offered practical
solutions which he himself had tried out successfully. For example, to
the query, "Why does a papaya plant die after flowering?" he suggested
building a bund round the base of the plant because water collecting
there rots the papaya base stem. In this connection he also spoke of a
medicine which he and his colleagues had invented to drastically reduce
the diseases which attack papaya. He markets this as "Papaya Cure". By
around noon the talk ended and I left for home.
Siolim
The plant exhibition at Saligao had given me an idea of what to expect
at the next plant festival I attended, which was at Siolim. Here I took
an active part thanks to the invitation I received from Alexyz, the
well known Goan cartoonist, who was in charge of the Siolim Plant
Festival called "Green Heritage".
Pages:
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35