Introduction of nutri-garden for household food security in Mahabubnagar district

Abstract

Healthy life starts with healthy diet. Nutritious rich food promotes productivity and performance of the individual throughout their entire lifespan. From past few years knowledge regarding this field is growing rapidly. It was well-known that vegetables and fruits contains high amount of nutrients, and thereby introducing the Nutri-garden concept to the farm families will not only provide them with required quantity of vegetables and fruits but also help them crud malnutrition. This paper describes the introduction of Nutri-garden for household food security in Mahabubnagar District of Telangana. The intervention started with a detailed baseline survey and its assessment in 2015-16 which motivated to design and promote Nutri-garden in the district. Vegetable Seed kits and saplings were distributed to farm women under the YFA-KVK demonstrations. This study examines intervention of Nutri-garden from the year 2017-18 to 2019-20. A representative sample size of 200 households was selected and their change in food consumption (quantity and frequency) was compared with the data of before (2015-16) and after (2020) intervention. Over the period (2017-2020) the vegetables and fruits produced under Nutri-garden was utilized for household consumption. Monthly per capita consumption (g/CU/person) of fruits and vegetables, both quantities consumed, and frequency of consumption was analyzed. Comparison of data taken at two time periods (before and after intervention), showed that there is a significant difference in the consumption pattern before and after the intervention of Nutri-garden with 99% confidence under paired t test. It was also witnessed that with the introduction of Nutri-garden, green leafy vegetable consumption was improved by 92 percent under daily consumption compared to zero consumption marked before intervention (2015-16) of garden. Therefore, it is concluded that, with the introduction of Nutri-garden there is an increased availability of different groups of vegetables that which fulfilled the daily nutritional requirements of farm families of Mahabubnagr district.