Impact analysis of kitchen gardening in NARI villages Padli and Khushtala Sawai Madhopur district of Rajasthan

Introduction

Protein Energy Malnutrition (PEM) is a deficiency disease caused in the infants due to 'Food Gap' between the intake and requirement. It affects children under 5 mostly belonging to the poor underprivileged communities. PEM is particularly serious during the post-weaning stage and is often associated with infection. Clinical signs and symptoms of protein-energy malnutrition (PEM) include Poor weight gain, Slowing of linear growth, Behavioural changes -Irritability, apathy, decreased social responsiveness, anxiety, and attention deficits. Protein-energy malnutrition (PEM), sometimes called protein-energy undernutrition (PEU), is a form of malnutrition that is defined as a range of conditions arising from coincident lack of dietary protein and/or energy (calories) in varying proportions. The condition has mild, moderate, and severe degrees. EM is fairly common worldwide in both children and adults and accounts for about 250 000 deaths annually. [ 1] In the industrialized world, PEM is predominantly seen in hospitals, is associated with disease, or is often found in the elderly. [ 2] Note that PEM may be secondary to other conditions such as chronic renal disease (Muscaritoli et al., 2009) [3] or cancer cachexia (Bosaeus, 2008) [4] in which protein energy wasting (PEW) may occur. Protein-energy malnutrition affects children the most because they have less protein intake. The few rare cases found in the developed world are almost entirely found in small children as a result of fad diets, or ignorance of the nutritional needs of children, particularly in cases of milk allergy. (Liu et al., 2001) [5] It retards growth, increases the risk and duration of illness, reduces work output and slows social and mental development. For poor households, vegetables and fruits are often the only sources of micronutrients in the family diet. Home gardening is one of the world's most ancient food production practices and is practiced throughout the world (Landauer and Brazil, 1985). Homestead production of fruits and vegetables provides the households with direct access to important nutrients that may not be readily available or within their economic rich. So, home gardening would be a good means to improve household food security. Therefore, present study was conducted to see the impact analysis of kitchen gardening in improving the nutritional security of households in rural areas. The basic nutritional need of women age group between 18-40 years. In between this age group maximum women's grow-up, conceives child and do maximum house hold works. This table clears shows daily nutritional requirement for women likes Energy, protein, fat, iron, B carotene, Vitamin C in form of different cereals, pulses ,green leafy vegetables, fruits.

Research methods

The study was conducted in Sawai Madhopur district of Rajasthan. In Sawai Madhopur, there were total 5 blocks namely Sawai Madhopur, Chouth ka Barwara, Khandaar, Bonli, Malarna. For the study sawai madhopur block was selected as NARI programme Village " Padli and khushtala". There were all 100 nutritional garden seed kits were distributed to selected families Randomly. Different capacity building activities including training, exposure visit and farmer's scientist's interaction on various aspects including vegetable grown in homestead, homestead vegetable utilization, average vegetable consumption, nutrient contribution from homestead vegetable gardening were planned and undertaken. Pre-survey was conducted to obtain information regarding profile and respondent's dietary food habits and nutritional deficiency diseases were also pre-surveyed. After one year of establishment of nutritional garden, a post-survey was done to analyses the impact of kitchen gardens on nutritional status of selected families. Data were collected by interview schedule. Map of Sawai Madhopur shows production and productivity of major recipes.

Research findings and discussion

Socio-economic characteristics of respondents were analyzed and presented in Table 1. The table indicates that majority (75%) of respondents were belonged to joint family and followed by (25%) nuclear family. It was found that majority of the families (65%) were from medium sized families followed by small size (20 %) and big size (15%). Results on family income showed that majority (76 %) of respondents belonged to income group of more than Rs. 1.0 lack. While looking at their educational status, results revealed that 70 per cent heads of the family were literate to primary level educated. Results on land holding depicts that majority (60%) had medium scale land followed by small (30%) scale land and only (10%) had large scale land.

Before demonstration respondents cultivated hardly grows 3 or 4 vegetables in their gardens such as green chilli, brinjal, dhaniya, Padiana, palak etc. But after intervention they had grown 21 items of vegetables like that bottle gourd, bitter gourd, green chilli, brinjal, summer squash, tomato, cucumber, ridge gourd, okra, cluster bean, cow pea, spinach, coriander, cualiflower, onion, cabbage, carrot, pea, fenugreek, radish, papaya, guava, improved variety of millets of bazra and jowar in Kharif, Jayad and Rabi seasons. Women of Padli were efficiently doing kitchen gardening which contributes maxmimum nutritional meals in their daily Nutri -thali with fruits. Many Household women started nutria-garden and achieve nutritional food security. Different essential nutrients contribution from vegetables is presented in Table 3. Nutritional value of different vegetables was calculated according ICMR guidelines. Table 3 indicates that there was significant increase in consumption of all nutrients and food items were increased with quantity as well as quality.

References

1. Muscaritoli M, Molfino A, Bollea MR, Fanelli FR. Malnutrition and wasting in renal disease. Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolic Care. 2009;12(4):378-83.
2. Bosaeus I. Nutritional support in multimodal therapy for cancer cachexia. Supportive Care in Cancer. 2008;16(5):447-51.
3. Liu T, Howard RM, Mancini AJ, Weston WL, Paller AS, Drolet BA, Esterly NB, Levy ML, et al. Kwashiorkor in the United States: Fad diets, perceived and true milk allergy, and nutritional ignorance. Archives of Dermatology. 2001;137(5):630-6.
4. ICMR. Guidelines e-mannual: Nutrition to Women Between 1845 years of Age. 2017.
5. Franco V, Hotta JK, Jorge SM, Dos Santos JE. Plasma fatty acids in children with grade III protein-energy malnutrition in its different clinical forms: Marasmus, marasmic kwashiorkor, and kwashiorkor. Journal of Tropical Pediatrics. 1999;45(2):71-5.