NO ONE WANTS TO BE A BAKER IN BREAD-LOVING GOA

By Pamela D'Mello/ The Asian Age http://www.asianage.com

Panaji, March 16: Bakers of Goa unite. You have nothing to lose but... falling profits and abysmally low social status. If this centuries-old profession is to be salvaged, then many here fear that some urgent steps are needed.

Goa, long known for its bread, today fears that the traditional baker's profession is a dying one.

Lack of fuel, esclating costs of inputs, competition from factory-made sliced bread, and a lack of skill upgradation are among the reasons cited for the decline of traditional bakeries here.

All Goa Bakers' Association board member Robert Colaco said in an interview here that youngsters think being a baker is a degrading profession. "Most youngsters don't mind doing work as a driver or waiter. But they hesitate when it comes to bread delivery," he said.

Taking such concerns into account, a baker's international seminar and exhibition is to be shortly arranged in this state- capital's suburb of Porvorim.

To be held on March 19-20, it will see the participation of French bakery experts, who will display bakery products from that country. Other Indian experts will also give demos on chocolate products.

In addition, there will be a trade exhibition of modern bakery equipment. This is the second time such an event is being held here, the first was in 1989.

For some time there have been warnings here that the way things are going, the cycle-mounted boys tooting their horn at the break of dawn could be a thing of the past. Some traditional bakers complain about facing excessive competition, shrinking markets and losses.

On the other hand, the peculiar breakfast habits of Goans -- who have long been accustomed to bread -- are not taken into account by national planners.

Hundreds of tonnes of wheat are dumped in Goa each month, for sale through the public-distribution network. But while quite some of this is suspected to being diverted to the black-market, the bakers who sell bread to the commonman have so far been largely unable to get quotas of subsidised wheat-flour.

Probably reflecting the pressures of urbanisation, many Goans strangely prefer to buy their bread in the evenings. Instead of the home-delivery that the poderos (bakers) earlier offered, today many go to corner shops to buy the same.

Goans widespread bread-eating habits for long has even earned them nicknames which allude to the "pao" (bread), and though the sentiment is not sharply articulated, there are fears over losing to modernity a part of what has made up the regional identity.