Kitchen Gardens: A Key to Reduce Malnutrition

“After participating in the orientation program on the preparation of nutritive food items under IGSSS’s SuPoshan program, I learned the importance of traditional farm produce. I learnt how to make a variety of food items through these indigenous agricultural products. We used groundnut, wheat flour, jaggery for making laddoo and made multi-grain paratha using drumstick leaves while making five types of cereals for my children,” says Jaka Bai, from Bijapuri village in Madhya Pradesh.

Under the SuPoshan program of IGSSS, the communities are being oriented on kitchen gardens and how to grow them. IGSSS also supports them by providing them with seeds. Through the development of kitchen gardens and orientation on the preparation of nutritive food items, there will be a positive change in the consumption practices which will help in checking malnutrition amongst children and women who are lactating and pregnant.

Jaka Bai is one of the many women who have started growing kitchen garden and diversified their produce. Jaka Bai has planted, brinjal, Indian squash (Tinda), tomato, lady finger, beans, coriander and chilly around the fruit plants that she already had in her fields. She also sowed new plants after the training, like drum stick, mango and guava in her kitchen garden.