SEVAI-Trichy based NGO promotes kitchen garden among women SHGs.

Vegetables in Kitchen Garden harvested

SEVAI has promoted kitchen garden project in its target villages of  its target families and these Kitchen gardens are located at the back door as possible where the village women grow all their vegetables, herbs, and fruit that people  eat fresh all year.  SEVAI ensures that fresh vegetables are available in every household; various self-help groups (SHGs) were given training. A kitchen garden contains plants that are grown to be eaten. They are usually near the house for quick and easy access to fresh vegetables for cooking. The following guide will help you develop a kitchen garden. The idea of having it as close to the back door as possible is that the people can walk by it often and be continuously harvesting from it. Kitchen gardens are established and maintained on a small patch of land with minimum technical inputs; hence, these gardens provide the rural resource poor communities with a platform for innovations in supplemental food production as well as an opportunity to improve their livelihoods. Family labour, especially efforts of women, becomes particularly important in the management of these gardens. To promote supplemental food production among the underprivileged and poor people in the rural areas, SEVAI promotes the small kitchen garden model with an aim to improve nutrition security and supplement household income. The primary rationale behind this model is to help improve the nutrition status of small and

Murungai harvest by SHG woman

marginal farmers and their families, providing them with an assorted mix of vegetables for a considerable stretch of the year. Kitchen gardens are cost-effective, practical and easily meet the balanced dietary requirements of rural households as well as add substantially to the family income. 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. Kitchen gardens directly contribute to household food security by increasing availability, accessibility, and utilisation of food products. Food items produced in kitchen gardens add to the family nutrition substantially, which directly leads to reduction of food insecurity. Kitchen gardening helped women to develop proficiency in vegetable cultivation to some extent, which in turn helps them become better home and environment managers and meet the needs of their families more easily and economically. This enhances their status within the family and in the society at large as well. It is also important to adopt a few safety measures for creating a safe and thriving kitchen garden.-Kris

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