Scientific Badi /kitchen garden for nutritional security and additional income source opportunity

Abstract

The improved model involves many crops that can be repeatedly harvested to meet a family’s vegetable needs throughout the year. The crops and their varieties are scientifically selected to be highly nutritious with few pest and disease problems. The underlying cause for malnutrition may be the unawareness, illiteracy, inadequate availability of vegetables and fruits and low purchasing power of the households. The traditional Badi system provides only some vegetable but the scientific Badi system provides diverse vegetable in the same piece of land; offers intake of more nutrition to the rural families. As per Recommended Dietary Allowances, daily intake of vegetables should be 300 gm/person including roots and tubers, green leafy and other vegetables. Keeping into consideration the high prevalence of malnutrition especially micronutrient deficiencies and inadequate availability of vegetables, Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Pahanda (A) has conducted 29 demonstrations having 300 m2 area per demonstration during the year 2019-2020 on scientific Badi development at the backyard/kitchen garden of rural farm family. Five trainings and a Poshan Pakhwada were organized to create awareness on nutrition amongst the rural’s. The major objective was to provide the nutrition required in daily diet, to provide additional income from the Badi and to utilize Badi’s scientifically. The results of the demonstration showed an improvement in availability of vegetables for consumption at both household and individual level. The average per capita availability of vegetables increased from 178 gm/day to 280 gm/day. The awareness on nutrition and technical knowledge on scientific utilization of Badi were also increased through demonstration and training programme.