By H H Mohrmen
Picture a rural household and the image that comes to the mind is a house with a garden, a pig sty and a chicken coop. This is a typical house in rural areas. The three components of the rural household is not mere arrangement for convenience sake but it represents one important part of life in a village. Apart from the pig and chicken shed, almost every household in the villages maintain a kitchen garden adjacent to their house. The importance of kitchen garden to the villager has not received any serious consideration from the policy makers. It is treated as a tradition that people have been practicing since time immemorial, but there is wisdom in the entire scheme of things.
From the nutrition point of view the kitchen garden which may vary in shape and size caters to the nutritional need of the members of the entire family. At a glance one would see that in the simple garden, the house owners would plant all kinds of vegetables that they need, depending on the season. The kitchen garden which is considered insignificant is in fact a source which provides them a complete diet that they need on a daily basis. Except for major crops like rice and potatoes which farmers plants in the field, the garden provides the family all their nutritional needs.
The other significant aspect of the garden is that it is traditional farming which means that neither chemical compost nor chemical pesticides are used in the garden. The farmers are health conscious and consume produce from their respective gardens only which are organic by default. Apart from variation in the shape and the size of the garden, the other unique aspect of every kitchen garden is diversity of vegetables found there. No matter how big or small their kitchen garden is farmers will grow varieties of vegetables there that will supplement their nutritional needs the whole year round.
However it was the first lockdown due to corona virus pandemic which made people realise the importance of a kitchen garden. The garden not only provides the house owners the much needed vegetables throughout the lockdown period, but the diversity of vegetables planted in the garden is the basis of food security for the farmers.
The kitchen garden supplies the farmers vegetables that they badly need during the lockdown. More importantly it gives them comfort because it ensures uninterrupted supply of food especially during times of crisis. The lockdown due to pandemic has proved that the kitchen garden stands in good stead for the farmers. Due to the shutdown of markets kitchen gardens provided the much needed vegetables for the rural households. The lockdown helped the farmers realise the wisdom of keeping kitchen garden which our ancestors have practiced since time immemorial.
Kitchen garden is another example of typical subsistence farming practices which adopted by the farmers in the rural areas. The reason is because primarily kitchen gardens are mostly kept for farmers’ own consumption. Kitchen gardens not only provide food for farmers but it also supports the farmers financially when they are able to sell the produce which is in excess of their need.
This story of a participatory guarantee scheme (PGS) group from Mulum village best describes how a kitchen garden not only provides the much needed vegetables for the farmers during lockdown but it also helps the farmers earn some money from the surplus that they produce. The PGS group in the village was initiated and hand-held by SURE in collaboration with NESFAS as part of the ‘No one shall be left behind initiative’ a project supported by REC. The PGS was able to supply and sell its excess produce to places like Jowai. An interesting turn of events was when the dorbar chnong decided to intervene. When the leaders of the village realized that the government was going to extend the lockdown, out of concern for shortage of vegetables for the community’s own consumption, they suggested that the PGS should slow down its supply of vegetables outside the village.
During the lockdown the War Jaintia area under Amlarem sub division was one area which had to bear the major brunt when markets were closed and supply of food was stopped. The topography of War Jaintia area is steep and there is no scope for planting rice or even to have a small kitchen garden. People in the area therefore depend solely on supply of food from outside for their consumption. In the entire War Jaintia area not only rice comes from outside but people have to depend on supply from outside the region even for vegetables. To some extent rice and other essential items were supplied by the government from the Public Distribution System (PDS), but for vegetables they had to rely on the markets and the same did not come because markets were closed due to lockdown.
The traditional planning of the settlement of villages in the War Jaintia area is also not feasible for a kitchen garden. In the War Jaintia area houses are built very close to each other and footpaths criss-cross one another. There is hardly any space between two houses or a public space. Houses in a typical War Jaintia village do not have backyards or front yards so the possibility of having a kitchen garden is almost zero. Moreover the torrential rains carried away all the top soil down the slopes to the plains. Hence the soil in the area is dry and arid and is not conducive for starting a garden.
The other major problem of not having a kitchen garden in the War Jaintia area is also because the economy of the people in the area is cash crop economy. The people of Amlarem subdivision totally depend on cash crops like aracanut, betel leaves, broomstick and to some extent pepper. Vegetables produced from the area are insignificant. Land tenure system in the area in which land is owned by the clans should not come in the way of farmers having a kitchen garden because clans do lease land to others for farming purposes.
The lockdown due to the pandemic has made the people of the area realise that being a cash crop economy compelled them to depend on supply from outside for all their basic needs. And unlike farmers in the different parts of the state, they have to depend from outside supply even for vegetables. Fortunately during the lockdown their vegetable needs were compensated to some extent by wild edibles from the forest.
People in the War Jaintia area need to rethink and explore the idea of having even a small kitchen garden of their own. It is not impossible to start a kitchen garden. The government only needs to think out of the box and help introduce kitchen gardens in the area. Of course it is true there is no space to start a kitchen garden near human settlements or in the villages but there are places outside or in the suburb of the village which are not steep and can be used as kitchen gardens.
If space and land constraints are the problem, people can start kitchen gardens using new farming practices like for example vertical farming or maybe new farming technology. Fertility of the soil can also be addressed by teaching farmers the different methods of making compost like Vermicompost, Berkley and Bokashi composting. Patricia Mukhim the Editor of the Shillong Times recently shared a story on her Facebook page about Rudy E. Kharmawphlang a young entrepreneur who grows vegetables using new farming ideas like hydroponics and aquaponics. Perhaps these new farming ideas will be suitable for those who live in the War Jaintia area where land and soil fertility is a problem and help them grow vegetables at least for their own consumption.
People in the region need to have a kitchen garden because it is their first line of defence in their fight against lack of nutritional food. Kitchen gardens are the households’ fortitude in the rural areas.
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