Articles
HEALTHY DIET GARDENING KIT – FOR BETTER HEALTH AND INCOME
Article number
752_109
Pages
581 – 584
Language
English
Abstract
Home gardening for improved nutrition is an integral component of a wider community development.
Additionally, this practice has a vast potential for addressing food and income needs for poor in Africa.
Indigenous vegetables (IVs) contain disease-fighting vitamins, such as A, C, E, important minerals as well as different phytochemical compounds, which help to prevent and treat diseases.
Successful interventions should continue for effective information, education, and communication methods to promote these crops to both producers and consumers, especially women farmers who are mainly engaged in the home garden production activities.
Research and development activities at the AVRDC-Regional Center for Africa (RCA) on home garden aim to promote micronutrient rich indigenous vegetable crops such as Amaranth spp., African eggplant, nightshade, Ethiopian kale, jute mallow, spider plant, vegetable cowpea, okra, pumpkin, moringa and high beta carotene and cherry tomatoes as well as other protein-rich crops like vegetable soybean and mungbean.
To disseminate these promising crop varieties a healthy diet gardening kit was developed at AVRDC-RCA. The kits containing seeds of a blend of 14 nutritive vegetable crops each were distributed to over 10,000 poor households in Southern Sudan, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Mozambique, Uganda, Malawi and Rwanda with the support of UNICEF, BMZ/GTZ, USAID and partner NARES. Preliminary feed back from home gardening interventions indicated that 14 distributed vegetable crops have been adopted by the African farmers, and these help in reducing micronutrient and protein calorie deficiencies, achieve food security and diversify diets and income through increased production of indigenous, legume and selected exotic vegetables.
Additionally, this practice has a vast potential for addressing food and income needs for poor in Africa.
Indigenous vegetables (IVs) contain disease-fighting vitamins, such as A, C, E, important minerals as well as different phytochemical compounds, which help to prevent and treat diseases.
Successful interventions should continue for effective information, education, and communication methods to promote these crops to both producers and consumers, especially women farmers who are mainly engaged in the home garden production activities.
Research and development activities at the AVRDC-Regional Center for Africa (RCA) on home garden aim to promote micronutrient rich indigenous vegetable crops such as Amaranth spp., African eggplant, nightshade, Ethiopian kale, jute mallow, spider plant, vegetable cowpea, okra, pumpkin, moringa and high beta carotene and cherry tomatoes as well as other protein-rich crops like vegetable soybean and mungbean.
To disseminate these promising crop varieties a healthy diet gardening kit was developed at AVRDC-RCA. The kits containing seeds of a blend of 14 nutritive vegetable crops each were distributed to over 10,000 poor households in Southern Sudan, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Mozambique, Uganda, Malawi and Rwanda with the support of UNICEF, BMZ/GTZ, USAID and partner NARES. Preliminary feed back from home gardening interventions indicated that 14 distributed vegetable crops have been adopted by the African farmers, and these help in reducing micronutrient and protein calorie deficiencies, achieve food security and diversify diets and income through increased production of indigenous, legume and selected exotic vegetables.
Authors
M.L. Chadha, M. Olouch
Keywords
healthy diet gardening kits, vegetables
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