Nutritional food security of households through establishment of kitchen garden in mayurbhanj district of odisha

Mayurbhanj is a tribal population dominated district of Odisha constituting 58.7 per cent of the tribal people and was declared as the fully scheduled district ofthe state. In villages of Mayurbhanj district, the major problems are poor health status, malnutrition causing growth retardation, reduced work output, social and retarded mental development and high morbidity and mortality rate among the population. In order to improve food and nutritional security of family members, KVK, Mayurbhanj-1 demonstrated FLD on Kitchen gardening during 2018–19, 2019–20 and 2020–21. It was found that the production of vegetables of respondents increased by 586.2 per cent resulting increase in consumption of vegetable by 48.81 per cent and subsequently vegetable purchasing decreased by 32.1%. It was also seen that apart from economic saving on vegetable consumption, kitchen gardening also provided them a livelihood support enterprise for fighting against malnutrition and poverty by providing them an additional income and empowerment to women. Likewise, intake of energy, protein and iron increased significantly after introduction of kitchen garden (p<0.05).