Nutritional security and income generation through kitchen gardening in Porbandar district of Gujarat

Abstract

A three years study on kitchen gardening through frontline demonstrations was conducted by KVK, Junagadh Agricultural University, Porbandar (Gujarat) during 2016-17 to 2018-19. Total 300 frontline demonstrations were conducted on total 60 ha area comprising 100 FLDs every year in 20 ha in Kharif season on farmers’ field in different villages of Porbandar district of Gujarat. Improved varieties of five vegetable crops namely; cluster bean (Pusa Navbahar), cowpea (AVC-1), brinjal (GJB-3), ridge guard (Pusa Nasdar) and cucumber (Guj. Cucumber-1) produced by Junagadh Agricultural University were given for preparing kitchen garden. The results of the frontline demonstrations revealed that from 0.2 ha kitchen garden, total 2241 kg high quality organic vegetables can be produced out of which, 707 kg organically produced high quality vegetables were consumed at home, 187 kg vegetables were gifted to the neighbors/relatives and surplus 1347 kg were sold out in the local market. Besides securing food and nutritional security, additional net income of Rs. 8442 with average BCR of 2.81 can be realized from a kitchen garden.