More Kitchen Gardens Growing

Thursday, November 17, 2016

Kitchen gardens planted by members of one of our self-help groups in Indpur, Himachal Pradesh are flourishing. Women of the Ambe Jagatambe SHG started 10 kitchen gardens, and now they have healthy food for their families at a much lower expense than buying from the market.

In backyard spaces, families across Amrita SeRVe villages are figuring out ways to ensure their basic nutritional needs and food security by growing their own kitchen gardens. This includes crops of pulses, vegetables and fruits—everything from spinach to peas to papaya.

For many years, those backyard spaces have been used for growing commercial produce and grains, mostly only one type of crop to sell in the local market. By habit, that low income farmer would then purchase cheap vegetables in the same market, irrespective of nutritional value.