A Journey Of Sustainable Living From The Plot To The Plate: Harvest What You Grow!
Kitchen gardens in Odisha’s diverse landscapes have promoted the idea of ‘Organic Odisha’ by nourishing communities.
CRY (Child Rights and You) and its partners have worked relentlessly to implement the kitchen garden initiative in five districts of Odisha. Balangir, Bargarh, Kandhamal, Koraput, and Kalahandi have benefitted from the kitchen garden initiative in Odisha. CRY workers have worked tirelessly to encourage the native residents to grow green vegetables in small patches in their backyards, and harvest and eat what they grow.
Nearly 1,643 families from 168 villages in Odisha have benefitted from the kitchen garden initiative, thus promoting better nutrition, pocket-friendly modes of nutrition, and more sustainable ways of living healthy lives. Kitchen gardens have been an integral part of Odisha’s history and culture. Since many years, households in Odisha have been growing seasonal vegetables, leafy vegetables, and herbs in their backyards or in their balconies, to sustain their nutrition and health in a pocket-friendly manner.
Steady supplies of fresh produce not only ensure sustainability and food security but also promote biodiversity by generating positive environmental impacts. Needless to mention, the kitchen garden initiative is economical and pocket-friendly, thus catering to the needs of the low-income households.
The Odisha Government has played a vital role by actively participating in the promotion of kitchen gardens in Odisha. Various schemes and programmes have been implemented to encourage and support families to grow their own vegetables in their plots of land. For instance, the Odisha Government’s “Mo Badi” campaign (“My Garden” campaign) has played an active role in promoting the kitchen garden initiative by distributing 13-18 different varieties of saplings to the families, and by conducting workshops and raising funds to technically assist the families.
At CRY, the primary aim is to make people aware that they all have the right to nutritious meals. Children, young adolescents, and adults alike ought to understand how important it is for all of them to consume nutritious meals, keeping in mind the need for ecological sustainability. The best way to tackle hunger and combat malnutrition is to grow your own green vegetables in your gardens, and consume them on your own plates, at nominal costs.
A volunteer from ‘Palli Alok Pathagar’, which operates in the Bargarh district in Odisha, remarked that the idea of the kitchen garden initiative is an ideal situation that promotes ecological sustainability, tackles hunger and malnutrition, and provides financial relief to the families.
CRY has implemented the kitchen garden programme at two levels. Firstly, at the individual household level; and secondly, at the institutional level where mid-day meals are provided at Anganwadi centres. Over the years, CRY has established more than 600 kitchen gardens in 7 states across India. Be it expecting mothers who lack adequate nutrition or daily wage earners who lost their sources of income during the global pandemic, volunteers at CRY have touched and changed the lives of plenty.
During the lockdown, families in the Bargarh district in Odisha were starving, and were unable to arrange for even a single meal for their children. Field workers then encouraged Trilochan and Nirmali Bhoi of Bhengrajpur village in Paikmal block, Bargarh, to grow their own vegetables in their own gardens.
At first, they were uncertain about the plan, but they eventually embarked on the mission that soon turned into a way of life for them. They had nutritious food to fill their stomachs. They could also sell the surplus produce to their neighbours, thereby earning money and also filling the stomachs of their neighbours.
This incident also encouraged the other families in the village to turn their gardens into their own kitchen gardens. The Odisha Government has taken steps to ensure that women self-help groups have the resources to grow their food in their own gardens. Steps have also been taken to incorporate gardening in the school curriculum. Urban households have also been encouraged to utilise their terrace spaces to grow and harvest their own green vegetables.
‘Chale Chalo’, another CRY partner, has been working effortlessly in 28 villages of Kalahandi, a maltreated district in western Odisha, to ensure that children and adolescents have access to proper nutrition. Besides conducting sessions to spread awareness about health and nutrition, ‘Chale Chalo’ members have collaborated with the Horticultural Department to distribute seeds among the families to ensure that the kitchen garden initiative is well-implemented. Families have reaped benefits galore from the initiative, to the extent that rates of malnourishment and anemia have shown downward trends.
In another incident, Anita Bariha, from Sadanandapur village in Bargarh, fell sick during her first trimester. Her hemoglobin levels dropped due to lack of regular nutritious meals. According to the NFHS-5 (2019-21) data, only about 76.5 per cent of pregnant women in rural Odisha have an antenatal check-up in their first trimester.
Workers from CRY met Anita Bariha and advised her to take iron supplements. They also encouraged her to grow vegetables in her garden, and helped her to arrange for seeds for the same. After following their advice, Ms. Anita has been able to grow nutritious vegetables in her own garden, and she hopes that she will be able to sustain her family’s nutrition without any struggle, thanks to CRY and their tireless efforts to make a difference in the lives of the underprivileged.
In Odisha, the kitchen garden initiative has been an age-old custom. With the advent of urbanisation and industrialisation in the state, the kitchen garden initiative suffered a severe setback. However, in recent years, the revival and resurgence of kitchen gardens in Odisha have helped fill the stomachs of many downtrodden families. CRY and its workers have played a significant role in securing food platters for the people, thereby contributing to a healthier, greener, and more self-reliant Odisha.
The Odisha Government has done a commendable job in teaching the people how to start and sustain kitchen gardens, from selecting the plants and maintaining them, to harvesting them at the right time. CRY and its workers have played active roles in teaching the people how regular harvests yield new produce, thus promoting kitchen gardening throughout the state.
Trina Chakrabarti, Regional Director, CRY (East) rightly remarked that the viable approach to solving nutritional issues is sustainable development. The various success stories that we get to hear from different households in Odisha are an indication that more and more families should join the ‘Green Revolution’ and cultivate their own nutrition in their own backyards.
– Reneeka Chatterjee (Intern at CRY)