Port Blair, Mar 09: Under the Tribal Sub-Plan training programme on Nutritious Kitchen Garden was conducted on 5th and 6th March, 2014 at Harminder Bay for the Nicobari Tribals of the area. Mr. Fred Lavi first captain was the Chief guest, Mr. Festus Nathaniel, Secretary was the guest of honour and Father John Bennet from ACANI was present on the occasion.
The Chief guest Mr. Fred Lavi expressed his happiness on the conduct of capacity building and demonstration programme by the team of scientists of CARI under the plan and guidance of Dr. S. Dam Roy, Director, CARI. He requested the women farmers participating in the programme to grow more vegetables in their backyard which will supplement to the balanced diet and add nutrition to the body. He concluded his speech by requesting every family to have NKG in their backyard.
The programme started with De-freezing, thereafter Dr. S.K. Zamir Ahmed, Senior Scientist and Course Coordinator informed the participants on the importance of nutritious kitchen garden and the concept of prioritizing Health, Happiness and Wealth (HHW) which is the need of the daily life. Shri Amit Srivastava, STO informed on the suitable vegetables for nutritious kitchen garden. A group task was organized among the Tribal farm women, wherein they deliberated, discussed and presented the new face of NKG with crops of their choice which included mainly brinjal, papaya, tomato, white pumpkin, chilli, jackfruit, cowpea, bottle gourd etc. It also reflected the placement of the crop in the area selected for the Nutritious Kitchen Garden. Presence of fence and pond were the highlight in the NKG of the group task.
Vegetables kits comprising eight different types of vegetables which can provide nutritional security to family for six month was given to individual farmers for growing in the backyard. The Captain, Secretary and the tribal women who participated in large numbers expressed their happiness on methodology of the training which was very beneficial to them. The programme was attended by a total of 59 farmers of which 55 were women and 4 men.
On 5th March, 2014 field visit and interaction by the teams were made to get the feed back on the vegetable grown and their preference of the other crops. Overall the programme was facilitated by the team comprising of Dr. S.K. Zamir Ahmed and Mr. Amit Srivastava from CARI, Port Blair.
