Backyard kitchen gardening intervention for Rabi 2020 was launched in the village Pujariguda under Nabarangpur block on 21st October 2020, in the august presence of various officers of Nabarangpur viz., Deputy Director Agriculture Sri Anand Rao, Deputy Director Horticulture Dr Pradosh Panda, Dy CEO, ORMAS Sri Uma Mahesh, Assistant Director Agriculture Sri Swain, ICDS supervisor Mrs Binita Jethi, BLC, Nabarangpur block, Odisha Livelihoods Mission Sunita Kumari Patra, Eminent journalist Sri Laxminarayan Boxi and Dr P. Srinivas, Principal Scientist, CHES (ICAR-IIHR). All the dignitaries addressed gathering of beneficiaries and highlighted the importance of family nutrition to be ensured through backyard kitchen gardens. The dignitaries also stressed on the convergence this CHES model of backyard kitchen gardening with government programme ‘Mo Upakari Bagicha’ on backyard kitchen nutri-gardening.
Dr Srinivas informed that CHES(ICAR-IIHR) will provide Arka Vegetable seed kits containing eight elite varieties and hybrids of popular vegetables, for developing 1000 nutri-kitchen gardens in different blocks of Nabarangpur in association of ORMAS under the RKVY (S&T) project. Further provision for smaller polyhouses / shade-net houses will be made in the project in near future for some active women based SHGs for production of quality planting material of fruits, vegetables and flower crops as a venture for generating supplementary income for the farm women. More than 40 women beneficiaries from two villages, Lokaguda and Pataniguda of Nabarangpur district, participated in the programme who represented Santosi-SHG and Mandi Dharini-SHG of Lokaguda and Maa laxmi-SHG, Rukmani-SHG, Kala dharini-SHG, Jayajaganath-SHG, and Bhauria-SHG of Pataniguda village. The women farmers expressed their willingness to successfully establish kitchen gardens in their backyard and save seeds of vegetable varieties for the next season too. The event was also covered in local newspapers.
All norms of social distancing, hand sanitizing and wearing of masks was ensured during the programmes.
