How Kitchen Garden can make our country rich!!!

The mother of the house always had a vegetable garden, till a few years ago. You probably remember being at your grandparents house, and most of what appeared at the table at mealtime, was plucked from the garden around the house!

It was the same in Mandya. Till a few years ago, the women in the villages of Mandya were so used to maintaining a kitchen garden in the backyard of their homes. These gardens were called “KeerayMadi”. (Keeray is a popular green leafy vegetable which is widely used in the preparation of curries, side dishes and more; "Madi" is referred to green leaf bed) All kitchen gardens consisted of Keeray green leaves yard, other greens like spinach, curry leaves, amaranthus etc. Depending on how much space each home had, it was common to also see vegetables and fruits like onion, garlic, tomato, radish, brinjal, ridge gourd, snake gourd, chillies, lemon, curry leaves, pumpkin, papaya, guava, banana, jack fruit, drumstick, coconut, chow chow and many more. And if you remember from your grandparents house – these were all grown without chemical fertilizers or pesticides! Most home would just fling some cow dung to the soil at intervals and Nature would just do her thing.

The outcome? You guessed it – clean, fresh, nutritious food that kept the family healthy.

So what changed?

This probably true of all villages and smaller towns in India, but we’re talking specifically about Mandya:

In Mandya, we see that most women have been forced to move away from the main roles that they occupied in the home. Most of them now go to work at garment factories / industries to earn a living. The modern ways of living have made sure that they have less peace of mind, less time for themselves and of course, less health.

Most of the people in Mandya are becoming increasingly modern, and of course are becoming victims of the many ‘lifestyle’ diseases - obesity, diabetes, blood pressure, migraine, gastrointestinal issues and many more. In the past decade more farmers and their families have died from heart attack and cancer than old age.

Insane Economics!

So let me give you some figures from Mandya!

Each family now spends about Rs 1000/month ($20) on greens, vegetables and fruits. Recently we did a survey in a village in Mandya which has about 4000 families. So, we took the above averages for calculation – and our estimates showed that just this one village spends a whopping Rs 4.8 crore ($ 800k) a year on greens, vegetables and fruits!!

And what do they get? Produce from their market -  laced with poisonous pesticides & chemicals which controls pests and increases shelf-life. It is only a matter of simple logic to understand that - consuming this poisonous produce will surely bring lifestyle diseases and early illness and death!

We continued our survey in the same village – in the second round looking closely at their expenditure for healthcare.

The result was pathetic - each family in the village was spending an average of Rs 20,000 / year ($333/year) on hospitals and medicines. The entire village was spending about Rs 8 crore / year ($1.3 million) on health related issues.

So in a year, food + health care expenses for this village were: Rs 4.8 crore + Rs 8 crore = RS 12.8 crore!

Important questions – where does this money come from? Is it any surprise that the farmers are in debt?

Farmers and their families are compelled to work for others to earn this money. What they don’t realize is that they can make small adjustments to their lives by restarting these KeerayMadis (kitchen garden), this can be a huge step in increasing health, and reducing healthcare expenditure!

Join Hands for Prosperity!

When we’re trying to change at the grassroots – we can never do it alone.

The Final Word:

The villagers in India are becoming poorer by being ‘consumers’ who need to earn money to buy everything. If this trend continues – in the long run, our entire nation will be affected. India, as a nation, can only become healthy and prosperous by making our villages healthy, productive and prosperous!