Nutri Garden Project

Why is in news? PM appreciates ‘Nutri Garden Project’ in Lakshadweep

• The Prime Minister has appreciated ‘Nutri Garden Project’ in Lakshadweep. He said that this initiative has shown how enthusiastic the people of Lakshadweep are about learning and adopting new things.
• The project was launched as a result of the development objective of self-reliant India in which vegetable seeds has been provided to 1000 farmers.
• Moreover, 7000 chickens of indigenous breeds were distributed to the women of Lakshadweep families with income less than Rs.600 under the Backyard Poultry Scheme.

Nutri Garden:

• A nutri-garden project is a cost-effective model to grow nutrient-rich crops for personal or community consumption to promote good health and well-being.
• It helps tackle both under-nutrition and over-nutrition by adopting a sustainable life cycle approach.
• Nutri-garden is advanced form of kitchen garden in which vegetables are grown as a source of food and income in a more scientific way.
• For small and marginal farmers, nutri-garden can contribute to the family diet and provide several other benefits, particularly for women.
• Micronutrient malnutrition can be overcome by including a variety of fruits and vegetables in daily food basket.
• Nutri Garden Odisha is one such successful model.
• A Nutri Garden project must have children as the primary participants, and should be executed in a phased manner.

Phase 1:

• Nutri Garden in Anganwadi: The project should be undertaken in a few government schools and Anganwadi Centres (AWCs) across a district.
• It will encourage local availability of diversified vegetables for mid-day meals.
• Its successful implementation would require convergence among the different departments namely, agriculture, horticulture and other related functionaries.
• It will enhance nutritional literacy among students, and make them understand the basis of choice of crops (based on season and topography) and their nutritional content.
• Based on the outcomes and learning from the pilot, the project should further be scaled-up to include all government schools in the district.

Phase 2:

• Under this phase, the project could be extended to private schools, which could adopt the culture of nutri-gardens.
• Learning by doing approach: Schools should create nutri-clubs as part of extra-curricular activities and promote organic farming as part of the curriculum.

Benefits of Nutri Gardens:

• It promotes safe and healthy eating habits among students.
• It provides nutritious food that can address micro & macro nutrient deficiencies and hidden hunger in children.
• It provides better use of vacant land lying idle at the schools and AWCs (Aangan Waadi Centres).
• It also ensures an inexpensive, regular and handy supply of fresh vegetables, which are basic to nutrition.
• It brings diversification in the menu of mid-day meals at government schools and AWCs.
• It turns children into catalysts who promote awareness and behavioural changes in society.

Challenges:

• Lack of availability of vacant land, water and other necessary infrastructure to create a nutri-garden.
• Insufficient funds from the administration.
• Unmotivated staff at AWCs and schools due to their existing workload and no absence of incentives
• Difficulty in bringing government functionaries on a single platform to effectively implement the concept.