Kitchen Gardens Nutritious food intake is needed for healthy lives but economic status of the families act as hurdle in accessing nutritious food in their regular diet. For many years, the Bundelkhand region has become synonymous with drought and disaster. Poor and marginalized families do not enjoy nutritious food intake due to year-long food insecurity. In February 2017, Asia Initiatives approved a grant for a Social Capital Credits (SoCCs) kitchen garden project in 6 locations in Jaluan district of Bundelkhand to benefit 1200 women directly and a larger population of each area indirectly. Parmarth recruited one project coordinator and one nutritionist, and Social Capital Credits training was provided to them. By April 2017, 13 community kitchens were established, and a supervisor was recruited to monitor and document the progress. Our major goals for promotion of Kitchen Gardens are:

• To ensure access to nutritious food intake in families
• To increase the income level of families
• To promote measures of water use efficiency through kitchen garden
• To provide a healthy, comfortable and beautiful environment
• Safe recycling and management of household wastes through composting or as animal feed as well as by utilizing waste water.

Benefits of Kitchen Gardens

• Income and enhanced rural employment through additional or off-season production
• Increased availability of food and better nutrition through food diversity
• Environmental benefits from recycling water and waste nutrients, controlling shade, dust and erosion, and maintaining or increasing local biodiversity.
• Enhanced Health & nutrition status of targeted families
• Enhanced Economic status of women members
• Reduced Incidents of malnutrition and anemia among infants, adolescents & women
• Check on water logging problems in villages.

Our Progress in 2020

1. Parmarth Samaj Sevi Sansthan, with the support of Save Indian Farmers has changed the lifestyle of rural people though backyard kitchen gardening training programme to the selected beneficiaries. During the month September-October, 41 beneficiaries from various SHGs were targeted and were encouraged to do for cultivation of diverse vegetables, primarily for household consumption.
2. 41 beneficiaries was selected from Jai Nishad Raj SHG from Mallahanpura, RadheRadhe SHG and Jwala Devi SHG from Pachokhra village, Jai Mata Di SHG, Amar Ujala SHG and Jalaun Devi SHGs from Madepura village, RadheRadhe SHG and Jai Bhole Baba SHG from Kanjausa village, Mangla SHG from Gopalpura, Shiv SHG from Kanara village.
3. In the month of September, organization provided with pack of seeds of seasonal vegetables, with harvesting period after 45-60days of plantation.
4. And as a result the kitchen garden of 41 beneficiaries ultimately produced 57 quintal chilies, 31quintal-50kg eggplant, 46 quintal cauliflower, 10quintal-80kg tomato, 35 quintal-50kg radish, 14quintal-50kg fenugreek, 11quintal-50kg spinach and 90 kg beetroot from 29 bigha of land. Parmarth encouraged its women community leaders to be actively involved in kitchen gardening and provides hand-holding support like, in a village bhagwanpura, Jai Lakshmi SHG received rented land for kitchen garden so it ensured food and nutritional securities of their families.
5. In addition to growing food for their family, the SHGs member got benefited by earnings from selling the excess produce of the vegetables they had grown from their kitchen garden to local market. By the end of month, the beneficiaries earned an income of Rs. 3,58,556 with net saving of Rs. 76,516.
6. After success of kitchen garden program, 26other families have shown interest in kitchen garden. These other 26 other women were provided with following seeds-17quintal-14kg potato seed, 7kg-500gm onion seed, 100gm cauliflower seeds.
7. 04 SHGs were provided 6 quintal wire-fencing support which helped them to protect their kitchen garden from animals.
8. Apart from that the 05 beneficiaries were given training and supplementary material, organic manure like AmritPani and Jeevaamrit.
9. 29 SHG where trained for weeding hoeing and guided for making of amritpani or jeevaamrit in their SHGs follow-up meeting under the guidance of Parmarth Samaj Sevi Sansathan team members.

Impact

1. For rural resource-poor families, the economic benefits of kitchen gardens are beyond simple food production and subsistence. Apart from income generation and household economic welfare, this initiative promotes entrepreneurship, especially among women. Nonetheless, the earnings from the sale of kitchen garden products and the savings from consuming home-grown food products create an increased amount of disposable income for the beneficiary families, who invest the surplus income to fulfill other domestic requirements including purchase of additional food items, greater investment in education of children, and others.
2. The initiative reduces hidden hunger and also curbs the possibilities of suffering from diseases caused by micro- nutrient deficiency by ensuring a small but continuous flow of subsistence food products in the daily household diet.
3. Adequate nutrition is not only dependent on the quantity of food available. The seed kit provided by the organization ensures a range of essential micro-nutrients like proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, magnesium, iron, folate, manganese, zinc, potassium, sodium, calcium, fiber, phosphorous among others for the beneficiary families. Thus, it is seen that kitchen gardens also aided in increased production and intake of micro-nutrient rich foods in 600 households, apart from diversifying the household diet and making it more interesting.
4. The contribution of women in household food production has increased manifold, at times even making them the sole care takers of these gardens. It is seen that with time, kitchen gardening activities commensurate with their daily domestic chores, subsequently generating hopes for their socio-economic enhancement.

Our Activities in 2019

Establishment of Community Kitchen Garden

Parmarth Samaj Sevi Sansthan with the support of Save Indian Farmers have discussed the concept of community kitchen garden. In this process, members of SHGs were also made aware of the process, benefit and management of kitchen gardens. After mutual consent of all members, it was decided that the project will support “Seeds for Community Kitchen Garden” to SHGs.

In target villages, total 25 new community kitchen gardens have been established during the reporting period. A total of 73 kitchen gardens have been established in the project area so far, of which 48 were established under the first phase.

Kitchen Garden Maintenance

The kitchen gardens built in the past under the project area, were maintained by the members of the Self-Help group. As a part of the maintenance, the member women sprayed the crops by making AmritPani for germs and Jeevamrit for enhancer. Those whose kitchen gardens have been damaged were supported by seeds or plant saplings.

Organic Pesticides and Manure for the Kitchen Garden Maintenance

Jeevamirt is a spray which contains high micro nutrition values for quality growth of plants and it is being used in each kitchen garden in the project area. Similarly, project-area kitchen gardens have also been introduced to Neemastra, which is pesticide and helps in the quality of crop production. It not only kills enemy insects but also helps in development of crop friendly insects.

Our Previous efforts in this area

Our efforts and impact for 2017 work in this area include:

April 2017: In order to enhance nutritional status of the communities, green vegetables are made available in their regular diet by promoting self-made community kitchen gardens. Waste water from water sources and houses are purified using jute filters and utilized for irrigation in these gardens. During this reporting period, 6 new kitchen gardens were established and 32 previous kitchen gardens were maintained. Bio fertilizers and IPM Methods like Amrit Pani and Jiva amrit are used. Seasonal vegetables like Pumpkin, Guard, Chilly, Tomato, brinjal etc. were produced. Around 1088 kg production was gained in a month. 16 SHG Members are earning around 600 rupees per month from kitchen garden by selling vegetables.

July 2017: 04 new kitchen gardens were established in 3 villages i.e. Haidalpura, Teehar and Ramhetpura. In these 4 kitchen gardens, sowing of spinach, Coriander, Ridge Guard, Lady finger, Sugar beets and radish was done. While establishing kitchen gardens, the focus is on Amrut Mitti (nutrient-rich soil), which has abundant and diverse microbial life to support healthy plant growth. It is simple and inexpensive to prepare using kitchen waste and cow dung, and gives effective results.

August 2017: During this period, 6 new Kitchen Gardens were established in Maharajpura, Kanar, Dhamna and Himmatpura villages of project area. Plants of spinach, coriander, tomato, chilly, brinjal were sown in these kitchen gardens. Residents were sensitized and motivated towards using domestic waste water as well as organic manure for good quality vegetables in their respective kitchen gardens. A follow-up was done of the 30 kitchen gardens in 16 villages of project area to ensure proper implementation and maintenance. Total 38 Kitchen Garden were established by the project affecting 274 beneficiaries.

In 2019, training was organized with the aim of encouraging organic methods for low cost vegetable cultivation, to the farmers of the project area, especially women. During the training, agricultural scientist, Dr. Rajnesh Mishra from Krishi Vigyan Kendra in Jalaun, taught the qualities of sustainable farming practices to the target community in a two-day training program.

Meetings of Women Farmers

25 community mobilization meetings were organized in 20 villages of Madhougarh and Rampura block cto make farmers aware of the concept of FPO and its importance. A total of 1597 people participated in these meetings, in which farmers were informed about the concept of FPO and the key strategy to market their produce.

Capacity building training of BODs of Women Farmers Producer Organization

A two-day workshop was organized on 13th-14th June in Madhougarh with selected Board of Directors and active members for Farmers Producer Organization formed in Rampura and Madhougarh blocks. During the workshop, the participants were briefed on various aspects related to the activities and operations of the Farmers Producer Company, as well as the functionalities and role of the BOD were discussed in detail.

Formation of Farmers Producer organization

Three farmer producer organizations have been formed in the project area with the aim of making the primary products produced by the women farmers of the project area or selling them at a reasonable rate by adding value to the products (Organic). This FPO has proved to be effective in encouraging the cultivation of organic products as well, because through this the farmers also get a fair price for their produce. During the reporting period, a total of 03 women farmer producer organizations were formed, in which a total of 77 women have taken membership.

Meeting of FPO members in Bundhelkhand

Our previous efforts in this area

In 2017, A village Cleaning campaign was conducted in the villages of Soneypura, Damna and Tihar on the eve of International Labor Day (01 May 2017). Around 120 people from these communities participated in cleaning public places as well as sources of drinking water like hand pumps & wells and traditional water bodies like ponds. During the campaign, 16 hand pumps and 2 ponds were cleaned, apart from the grounds of primary schools. The villagers decided to repeat this activity every month through labor contribution.

An awareness rally was also organized on the ocassion of Groundwater week, and an awareness session conducted for school children to sensitize the village community to protect ground water through rain water conservation. 84 children participated in this event, and sapling plantation was done outside primary school premises.

Bundelkhand has been a region that is traditionally rich in natural resources. In the past, this region had dense forests and witnessed good agricultural practices. Despite limited irrigation facilities, the inhabitants of the region used good quality seeds for crops, which gave enough produce to meet the food grain requirements of the people all the year round. However, in the greed for more produce and with an increased emphasis on cash crops, slowly and gradually, people in the region have forgotten about their traditional seeds. Now, with the region experiencing a decade-long drought, the farmers are able to get only minimal produce from land and traditional seeds that require less water have become almost nonexistent. 

Seed Bank members in Bundhelkhand

In this backdrop, Parmarth, with the partnership of Save Indian Farmers, initiated the process of establishment of Seed Bank in the villages under the project area. The Seed Bank is a community-based system for collecting and preserving traditional, local seeds. Under leadership of SHG members the process of setting up seed banks in eight villages was established. Those villages are  Gopalpura, Mallahanpur, Madhepura, Sonepura, Pachokhra, Himmatpura, Ninawali and Haidalpura. The Types of seeds that are most commonly kept in these seed banks include green pea, brinjal, spinach, radish, coriander, spinach, cauliflower, and carrot. For smooth implementation of the Seed Bank, by-laws have also been prepared.  

With the aim of connecting the women farmers of the project area to the vegetable business, the women of the project area were supported with land lease through the project. Under this, the women farmers of the group are taking seeds provided by SIF and producing vegetables on the land leased for the kitchen garden.

The women farmers are not only able to keep some vegetables for their own families, but also are able to sell them for a profit and contribute towards the rent/lease of the land. With the aim of making the business profitable by selling vegetables, this activity is being encouraged more. In the year 2019, rent was provided for land to a total of 08 groups of SHGs.

In order to ensure the safety of vegetable crops from wild animals and various other animals, wire support was provided to the beneficiaries of the community kitchen garden set up in the project area. Aside from fence support, with the purpose of providing irrigation facility in the Kitchen Gardens, pipes were also supported for these groups.

Machan method of cultivation was demonstrated to the farmers of the project area with an aim to make the women of the project area produce more vegetables in less space and reduce the loss of vegetables due to melting. Here is a list of our beneficiaries from this initiative.