Though the idea of nutrition garden is quite like a traditional kitchen garden. But, the difference here is that Pramila grows a wide range of vegetables, legumes and leaves in her nutrition garden so that it can give her control over food and fulfil the micronutrient needs of her family.
Here, she grows seasonal as well as all-time crops like radish, carrot, cauliflower, peas, cowpeas, bins, okra, spinach, coriander leaves, brinjal, tomato, onion, variety of edible tubers, gourds and leaves to make it a rich and reliable source of fresh and nutritious food.
Food freedom
“Earlier, I couldn’t fulfil the food demands of my children because we had to buy vegetables from the market where prices of tomatoes and other vegetables were too high. We could hardly spend 200-250 rupees a week on vegetables and other food materials. This was not enough to fulfil our food needs,” Pramila said while working in her garden. Looking at her husband who was working beside, Pramila claimed, “We don’t buy vegetables from the market anymore. My small nutrition garden fulfils this need of my family.”
At least 12 other women of Pengdusi
village have raised their own gardens in the backyard and grow more than 15
verities of vegetables and leaves. “This does not only save money spent earlier
on buying vegetables from the market at a higher price, but they also get fresh
vegetables which is good for health,” Radhamani Nayak, the village Angan Wadi
Worker said.
Dibyasini Nayak, 16, is happy with the
nutrition garden because she doesn’t have to give up her choice in the food
plate. “Earlier we had to take whatever was served by my mother. But, now, I
get something – a cucumber or a tomato or a handful of leaves – from the garden
raised by my mother to add to my plate,” she said.
In the neighbouring Telguda village,
about 25 women have raised similar gardens to fulfil the vegetable needs of
their respective families.
For Padma Naik, 45, of Telguda
village, buying food from the market to feed her seven-member-family was really
a huge financial burden. “We used to spend over 1500 rupees a month on
vegetables and that again was falling short for the family. That’s why we
started this. Now, we are free to decide our food menu without depending on the
market.”
The idea of nutrition garden is
gathering popularity and is being spreading in Kalahandi, Rayagada, Balangir
and other districts of Odisha’s poverty stricken region of KBK, an acronym for the area covering undivided
Kalahandi, Balangir and Koraput districts, which is now split into eight
districts.
Good food at no
investment
“While vegetables are essential part
of our daily diet, buying them from the market is a huge burden for us because
we are all poor people. We had to avoid buying many vegetables because we
couldn’t afford to get them,” Akshaya Lima of Marathiguda village in Rayagada’s
Gudari block said. “I am very happy now as my wife, Nalini, has made us food
sufficient by growing over fifteen crops of vegetables and leaves in her small nutrition
garden.”
Study
finds that 31 percent of households in the region spend Rs.1000 or less per
month on food items whereas 55 percent of households spend between 1000 and
2000 rupees on the same. Their food budget makes 57 percent of total monthly household
expenditure of these
families.
According to Sweta Banerjee, Kolkata
based public health nutritionist working with Welthungerlife, India, who has made studies on nutrition
gardens and their role in empowering women and addressing malnutrition in
Odisha’s KBK districts, “When you have to buy more essential foods, say
vegetables, pulses, egg, fish from the market, you will automatically opt for
the vegetable or whatever is cheaper compromising on other things. But, when
you have your own vegetables at home, now you have the money to go to the
market and buy the egg or something else like fish because the animal protein
is very important for the diet,” said.
The reason women show interest in having
their own nutrition garden are that it requires no financial investment but
some labour during leisure times. They can feed their family and particularly
the children with fresh vegetables grown in their own gardens where no chemical
pesticide or inorganic fertiliser is used. And, the important thing is that
they can save the money spent to buy vegetables from the market where prices go
up day by day.
“For nutrition gardens, vegetable
seeds are being organised from farmers and distributed among women. There is no
use of chemical pesticides, fertilisers, high yielding or hybrid seeds. Inputs
to improve soil health are being prepared by using local biomass and disease
and pests are being managed with different ecological methods. So no input cost
involved in this activity,” said Debjeet Sarangi of the Living Farms, a non-profit that promotes the very idea of
nutrition garden in the region with support from Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives (APPI) and in collaboration with the Odisha Livelihood Mission (OLM).
The target being to reach out to
7,50,000 households in the entire state and implement the idea to address the
issue of chronic malnutrition among tribal population of the State, more than
80,000 household from eight blocks of two malnutrition affected districts,
Rayagada and Kalahandi, have started their nutrition gardens. “The objective is
to improve nutrition status of pregnant and lactating women, adolescent girls
and children under five years of age through dietary diversity,” Sarangi
emphasised.
A mother of three children, Nalini
Lima of Marathiguda village takes pride claiming that she serves safe,
nutritious food to her children and husband while fulfilling their demands for
specific vegetables and leaves.
“If the woman has no control over what
is coming to the kitchen, there is no meaning of dietary balance. But when she
has the nutrition garden, she has more control over the food. That gives her a
lot of freedom to decide what she needs for the child, adolescent daughter and
the family,” Public health nutritionist Sweta Banerjee told.
Equity-based nutrition
security
According to the dietary guidelines of Hyderabad based National Institute of
Nutrition, “Nutrition is a basic prerequisite to sustain life,” and “variety in
food is not only the spice of life but also the essence of nutrition and
health.”
Dietary diversity being key to improve
nutritional intake and achieving nutrition security, “women now do the crop planning
so that something and the other is available in the nutrition garden throughout
the year because you can’t have a lot of it in one season and nothing in the
other. So, nutrition garden consistently contributes towards the micronutrient
requirement of these poor people, particularly women and children, who are on
the frontline of vulnerability to diseases and issues arising out of
malnutrition,” Banerjee highlighted.
Detected undernourished six years
back, Alladini Bhanda, 27, and her husband Ashok Bhanda, 34, of Bolangir’s
Ratanpur village gave all credit to their nutrition garden for their weight gain
from 35 kg and 48 kg to 45 kg and 64 kg respectively. “Until I started the
nutrition garden five years back, our daily meal was limited to rice as the
staple and only one supporting item. Sometimes, we had to manage with rice and one
single vegetable, cooked or roasted,” Alladini told.
“I started my nutrition garden in 2013
with support from Reliance Foundation. Today, I grow several varieties of
vegetables in our nutrition garden to feed my children with safe nutritious
food so that they don’t have to face any kind of malnutrition induced physical
and mental weaknesses.” She added.
Over 2000 such nutrition gardens have
been raised by tribal and other poor women in three blocks of Balangir
district. “Since they are poor people hit by regular draughts, Reliance
foundation, the philanthropic arm of Reliance Industries Ltd, supports them with
iron garden nets for fencing and a few gardening tools to start nutrition
gardens. The foundation also links women with concerned government departments
for necessary farming and nutrition related advices,” Abagyanta Das Naik,
Reliance Foundation’s Team Leader for Balangir cluster, said.
Since it is well fenced and protected, many of
us have added banana, lemon and moringa trees to the nutrition gardens to make
them further productive,” Mathura Podha, another woman of Ratanpur said.
Promoting best water use practice, the
household grey water has been channelled to nutrition gardens to add to the
soil moisture and support plant growth.
While the gardens are seen as
consistent suppliers of micronutrients to poor and tribal households, they have
also promoted equity in distribution of food without any discrimination between
male and female members of the family.
“Usually, when it comes to consumption
of food in the family, male members always have the prime share. But, now, in families
with a nutrition garden, such discrimination is not there,” Basanti Bag, the Accredited
Social Health Activist (ASHA) of Telguda village said.
Mother of an adolescent girl, Sitaguru
Kadraka of Krushna Patraguda village in Rayagada district said, “There is no
point discriminating any one when we have enough food. Secondly, girls must not
be undernourished because they are the future mothers. Unless they are healthy and
fit how can they, as mothers in future, carry and give birth to healthy babies?”
Gardens of hope
In the tribal pockets of Odisha, 51.8
percent of adolescent girls and 30.3 percent of women are under-nourished while
78.4 percent and 77.7 percent of women are anaemic, according to a Unicef nutrition report. As per a baseline survey report of Odisha government’s Women and Child
Development Department, 72 percent of tribal children under five years of age in
the 15 high burden districts, of which whole of KBK region is a major part, are
anaemic. NFHS 4 (2015-16) data confirms high prevalence of stunting, wasting
and underweight among under-five children of the tribal populated KBK region.
When the state of nutrition in poverty
stricken KBK region and other tribal populated districts is so discouraging,
such small nutrition gardens certainly bear great amount of hope in regard to
nutrition security of the poor tribal families by improving dietary diversity.
An edited version of this article was published on the VillageSquare.in.
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