The Goan meal is changing, one ingredient at a time

A staple of Goan coastal food is rice and fish curry. In tourist-facing restaurants, it is often served as a thali, with a large rawa- or masala-fried fish and multiple smaller sides. The star is usually a premium fish, such as kingfish or chonak, prized for its size and ease of deboning.

But in the average Goan home, fish curry has traditionally reigned supreme. Or at least, it used to. Tourism, overfishing, changing agricultural and food preferences, and climate change are reshaping the state’s food system. For the traditional fish-and-rice meal, both the fish and the rice on the plate are changing.

According to food historians and researchers, two major forces behind this change are mass tourism and the commercialisation of the Goan way of life. Rising land prices have encouraged some farmers to move away from agriculture towards more lucrative tourism-related businesses. Climate-related weather fluctuations are also putting pressure on agriculture. For instance, in 2025, some mango and cashew farmers in Goa reported steep income losses amid erratic weather and rising temperature, with one farmer reporting farm incomes dropping by as much as eight times. Meanwhile, demand from restaurants and export markets has changed the incentives for fishers, who can earn more from high-value varieties such as pomfret and kingfish.

These pressures are changing not only how food is produced and sold, but also what local households can afford. Fish that once featured regularly in everyday meals are becoming more expensive and harder to find, while traditional crops and ingredients are losing ground. Changing climate adds another layer of uncertainty, although its contribution to specific changes in Goa’s food system is not always easy to separate from economic and environmental pressures.

As world leaders gather in Antalya, Türkiye, for COP31 to negotiate global climate action, Goa’s changing fish-and-rice plate highlights how climate change and economic pressures are reshaping food systems, from what people grow and catch to what they can afford to eat.

In Goa, these pressures are increasingly evident in the availability and affordability of fish such as mackerel and sardines, long staples of everyday meals.

Climate change is impacting a food system already under strain, but its effect is not always readily visible, said Aaron Lobo, a marine conservation scientist with the Marine Conservation Committee under the International Union for Conservation of Nature - Species Survival Commission (IUCN-SSC).

“Today, globalisation is a constant buffer which masks change,” he said, pointing to the complexities involved in identifying climate factors for specific shifts in the food system. 

Rising ocean temperatures will have repercussions on seafood production and affect rainfall, which will impact agriculture, according to Lobo. He said rainfall deficits associated with El Niño could add to the risks facing food production. He is concerned that climate-driven drought could adversely affect food supplies, potentially leaving Goa vulnerable to disruptions similar to those during the pandemic, when transport restrictions left the state short of essential supplies.

“Extreme events are going to hit our food supplies in many ways. Fisheries and fish catch might change. Some species might do better, but as a whole, it will not do great,” said Lobo.

Also Read: Coral reef scientists raise alarm as climate change decimates ocean ecosystems vital to fish and humans

Research along India’s west coast offers some evidence of how changing ocean conditions can affect fisheries. A study published in Scientific Reports in September 2026 examined the relationship between fish landings and environmental conditions, including sea-surface temperature, dissolved oxygen and chlorophyll-a, an indicator of phytoplankton abundance. The researchers found that landings were lower under warmer sea-surface conditions in their analysis.

The researchers also found associations between fish landings and chlorophyll-a and dissolved oxygen, highlighting the importance of marine productivity and water conditions. Fishing effort, seasonal bans, wind conditions and the movement of fishing fleets also affect landings, making it difficult to attribute changes to temperature alone.

The study included field sampling off Goa, but its findings do not establish that climate change alone is responsible for changes in local fish availability. But shows how climate change is becoming a magnifier of the issues that food supply chains are already facing.

Similar is the case on land, changing rainfall and temperatures, as well as droughts and floods, can affect food production, said experts. But land conversion, labour shortages and rising cultivation costs also influence what farmers choose to grow.   

In Goa, climate change is an added pressure on a sector already facing overfishing, pollution, high cultivation costs and declining agriculture.

What does this mean for the humble fish-curry-and-rice meal, a familiar feature of Goan life?

Rising prices

The difficulty of holding on to the traditional Goan diet begins at the market.

Back in the day, fish species like mackerel, sardines, croaker, squids, clams, mussels were cheap. “Sardines were so cheap that they were used as plant fertiliser. But now, their high costs have made the fish and curry expensive,” said Edgar D’Souza, principal at the Goa College of Hospitality & Culinary Education.

He suspects rising commercial activity is partly responsible. Wholesalers pick up much of the catch at the shore, leaving smaller quantities for local markets, he said.

According to a report by the Goan Herald, around 40% of Goa’s fish catch is sent to other states or international markets, according to industry estimates. There is also a shift towards higher-value catches such as kingfish and squid, which can attract demand from export and hospitality markets. 

The rising cost of fish has also dealt a blow to the traditional practice of preserving leftovers by drying and salting them, according to D’Souza. Species such as mackerel, croaker and prawns were used for this. During the fishing off-season in the monsoon, salted fish was eaten with pickle and pez, boiled rice cooked in its own gruel, as a late-morning snack.

Other species, including shark, once used in the fiery and sour curry known as ambot tik, and shinanyo, or peacock-coloured mussels, have become harder to find in markets, D’Souza said. He suspects declining marine resources, coastal habitat degradation and pollution may be contributing to their reduced availability.

Also Read: As fish numbers decline in Chennai, how can we consume seafood sustainably

Nowadays, ambot tik recipes use catfish instead of shark, according to food historian Odette Mascarenhas. Such substitutions are becoming part of everyday cooking.

Fishermen in Benaulim, in south Goa, also described a decline in the availability of sharks in local waters. 

For fishers, there are more pressing challenges than the disappearance of one species. Members of the 70-strong Benaulim Fishing Cooperative said they now travel farther offshore to find fish.

As sea water warms, they said, fish which like to inhabit colder waters, move deeper into the ocean instead of staying near the shore.“Ten years back, we used to get fish just two kilometres from the shore. Now, we have to travel 20 km,” said an elderly fisherman refusing to share his name.

This brings them into the fishing grounds of larger trawlers, which can operate farther offshore and compete for commercially valuable catches.

However, the impact of warming seas will differ among fish species. 

Lobo said changes in plankton production could have repercussions for fish catches. He warned that warming oceans and declining oxygen levels could affect species like sardines and mackerel, potentially changing their distribution and making some catches more vulnerable to fishing pressure.

“Fish are sensitive to the niche they occupy,” he said, adding that groupers need big rocky boulders, whereas tunas can swim across oceans, and sardines and mackerel can move freely. 

“Then, some fishes will be knocked off the plate due to overfishing.” Lobo expects pressure on larger fish favoured by tourists, including kingfish, red snappers, wild Asian seabass, sharks, to increase in the coming years. And that declining availability could push prices higher, affecting local consumers.

Besides climate change and overfishing, water pollution through agricultural runoff and other means also plays a role in declining fish populations. Overfishing and fisheries management  are additional factors shaping which species are caught and in what quantities.

“A lot of perfectly valuable small fish like sardines are being ground down to fish feed for aquaculture farms,” said Lobo. 

Changing agriculture

The other component of the traditional meal, rice, has also changed.

“Over the years, there has been a decline in traditional Goan farming. Now we have leased them out for urban and commercial development and real estate, or kept them barren. Due to the loss of agricultural lands, Goa is now dependent on essential food items coming from neighbouring states, so prices of rice, pulses, and vegetables are higher,” said D’Souza.

States such as Maharashtra and Karnataka experience heatwaves, irregular rainfall and droughts, which can reduce crop yields and disrupt supplies. “Since Goa depends heavily on neighbouring states for vegetables and other essential foods, these disruptions can contribute to higher prices, alongside rising transport costs, seasonal demand and market factors,” D’Souza added.

Native rice varieties such as korgut, traditionally grown in Goa’s low-lying coastal wetlands known as khazan lands, have increasingly given way to other varieties, according to V Paramesha, a senior scientist at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research's Central Coastal Agricultural Research Institute (ICAR-CCARI).

Goa’s khazan lands have historically supported rice cultivation in saline coastal environments. But korgut yields about one tonne per hectare, compared with around 2.5 tonnes for improved varieties such as Jaya, Jyoti and Goa Dhan, Paramesha said.

“Korgut also requires more manual labour and is not suitable for combined harvesting, while input costs, particularly fertiliser, have risen,” he said.

And then you add climate change to the mix. Paramesha said increasingly erratic monsoon rainfall, extreme flooding and rising temperatures pose challenges to korgut cultivation. He added that the risk of increased seawater intrusion into coastal agricultural lands affected its productivity.

According to Paramesha, climate change is influencing agricultural decision-making in Goa through changes in perceived production risk, crop selection, planting schedules, water management, cropping intensity and livelihood diversification. “Farmers are increasingly considering varieties and farming systems that provide greater resilience to temperature variability, uncertain monsoon conditions, flooding and salinity,” he said.

The shift has affected what people eat at home. According to Paramesha, fewer households now eat traditional parboiled rice, with more people choosing less expensive small-grain jeera rice. Restaurants often serve long-grain basmati.

When ingredients disappear

According to Mascarenhas, the decline of local agriculture also means the loss of ingredients used in traditional cuisine. She points to two rice-based dishes that have become less common: shirvalyo, hand-pressed rice noodles served with sweetened coconut milk, and patoleo, steamed rice cakes made from ground Goan red rice paste, grated coconut and jaggery.

“Their basic ingredients are no longer available. Substituting basmati does not produce the same dish,” she said.

Another change has been in how Goans prepare their curries. Toddy was once used as a souring agent, but declining toddy production led to its replacement by synthetic vinegar, which “just does not taste the same”, according to Mascarenhas.

She also pointed to a reduction in the number of coconut climbers and a decline in coconut production. This contributed to the growing use of ready-made coconut products, such as dessicated coconut, which does not have the same flavour.

Climate-related pressures on coconut cultivation have also been reported elsewhere in India. A DW report examined how coconut production in Tamil Nadu has been hit badly by rising temperatures and new pests.

Also Read: Odisha Shows the Economic Cost of Hidden Climate Losses

Mascarenhas recalled a Goa where curries depended on whichever fish was available according to the season, while vegetables and other ingredients were grown in backyards.

For a long time, the Goan meal was built around what was available. Fish came from the coast, rice from paddy fields, while coconuts, chillies and vegetables could be grown close to home. Today, that relationship has weakened under the combined pressures of commercialisation, land-use change, changing food preferences and environmental stress.

Each substitution points to the difficulty of obtaining ingredients that were once considered abundant and affordable. The Goan fish-and-rice plate may still look familiar, but the systems that sustain it are changing.

Lobo believes that if this trend continues and Goa becomes more dependent on fish imports, which could raise costs, fewer people may be able to afford fish and some may turn to industrially produced chicken.

Such changes are already unfolding in Goan households. In D’Souza’s home, for instance, he tries to cook and eat the age-old dishes of fish and rice, even if their individual forms are not the same as before. But his children have fewer vegetables and also consume more chicken. 

For now, the changes to the Goan plate reflect several pressures at once: what farmers can afford to grow, what fishers can catch, what markets reward and what households can pay. Climate change adds risks to both land and sea, but the extent to which it is reshaping the state’s everyday diet will depend on how those risks interact with the economic and environmental changes already under way.

[Edit: Bhasker Tripathi, Production: Arkatapa Basu]