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Adoption of Nutri-garden has increased family food consumption and food diversity. Mr. Sadanand Mandal of Hundaili village of Katihar district had adopted Nutri-garden model. He found Nutri-garden very promising for the availability of vegetables for the whole family year-round. He has limited space in his house. He has grown the vegetables in a very small space by putting in a lot of effort and thinking outside the box. He has used the house roof for vines such as bottle gourd and ridge gourd, as well as the backyard area of the compound for okra and red amaranth, and the roof of the cattle shed for climbers such as Dolichos bean and bitter gourd. Not only that but the mango tree is also used to grow sponge gourd.

Mr. Sadanand Mandal is a 66 year old marginal- farmer by profession resides in Hundaili village of Katihar district in Bihar. He is educated up to intermediate level farmer keen to acquire knowledge of recent technologies. He was preparing for government jobs but failed several attempt and started agriculture as profession just like other brothers in village.  He has 3 bigha of land in which he cultivates crops Rice Wheat Maize and Pulses for livelihood security and grows vegetables in small area of land as for family consumption. He has a small house in 4 katha (5440 sq. ft) where he resides with family and 3 cows.

A team of scientist from ICAR- Research Complex for  Eastern Region, Patna under the project Status of Food and Nutritional Security of farm households in Eastern India visited Hundaili Village of Katihar during 2019-2020 distributed vegetable seeds kits to farmers and encouraged them to adopt Nutri garden for family use. A Nutri garden gives a household the opportunity to cultivate its own food. The household can assure that the food it consumes is fresh and seasonal and that it was cultivated organically (without the use of harmful chemical pesticides or fertilizers).

A Nutri garden can supply fruits and vegetables for a family all over the year. If the product surpasses the family`s usage, they can sell it and use the proceeds towards additional public places. Although, every household plants some vegetables and spices for home consumption but the farmers-scientist interaction and detailed discussion about health and nutrition and food really helped him to rethink again about family health.

He commit to start a Nutri-garden for his household to meet daily dietary vegetable requirements. In his small land of 4 katha 2.5 katha is occupied by house, cowshed, storehouse for farm and threshing floor only 1.5 katha is left. He was very keen to grow nutri-vegetable for ensuring household nutritional security but he had not much space at house to do that. Through hard work and an innovative mind, he has grown the vegetable in very limited space. He have utilized the house roof for vines like bottle gourd, ridge gourd backyard part of the compound for okra, red amaranth, cattle shed roof for climbers like dolichos bean and bitter gourd not only that mango tree are also utilized for sponge gourd. 

 

His full family works in the home garden for maintaining, weeding, watering, and harvesting activities. Through this effort, Mr. Sadanand Mandal has set an example in the village for utilizing household space for vegetable cultivation. Limitation of land has not limited his productive nature. 

 

“Adoption of Nutri-garden helped me to make better dietary choices by providing my family more choices of fresh vegetable year-round. It has increased availability of nutritious food options for children and adolescents at the doorstep and thus helped a lot in nutritional security through the availability of nutritious foods, particularly fruits and vegetables from my home”.- Sadanand Mandal

 

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Success story of sadanand Mandal_compressed.pdf