Family nutrition gardens are growing in popularity in Narail. In the Sadar upazila alone, 629 farmers have already set up such gardens on uncultivated fallow land and in their homestead yards. The gardens meet their families' nutritional needs, and the surplus vegetables are sold at market for extra income. The Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) is supporting the farmers throughout.

According to the Sadar Upazila Agriculture Office, 629 farmers in the upazila have received farm inputs and technical support over the past three years under a project to set up family nutrition gardens on fallow land and homestead yards. Of them, 401 farmers received the support in the current 2022-23 financial year.

Muslima and Safia Begum, residents of the Narayanpur Ashrayan project in Shahabad union, told Jagonews: "With help from the agriculture office we have made family nutrition gardens in our yards. They will meet our need for vegetables, and we will profit by selling the extra."

Jamal Molla, a farmer living in the Ashrayan project, said: "Beside my house I have grown bottle gourd and other vegetables using climate-smart technology, in tyres and sacks, under the Khulna agricultural region's climate change adaptation project, getting a bigger yield from a small space."

Narail Sadar Upazila Agriculture Officer Mohammad Roknuzzaman told Jagonews: "Family nutrition gardens are making an important contribution to producing safe vegetables. Besides meeting families' nutritional needs, farmers are profiting by selling their surplus vegetables."

Under the project, the agriculture office recently gave 10 households in the Narayanpur Ashrayan project free seeds of bottle gourd, bitter gourd, red amaranth, sponge gourd, sweet pumpkin, yardlong bean, okra, ridge gourd and other vegetables, along with organic fertiliser, seed storage containers and nets, for their family nutrition gardens.

Present at the handover were Sadar Upazila Nirbahi Officer Sadia Islam, Sadar Upazila Agriculture Officer Mohammad Roknuzzaman, Sadar Upazila Senior Fisheries Officer Md Enamul Haque, Shahabad union Sub-Assistant Agriculture Officer BM Zahid Shakil, Shahabad union parishad chairman Md Ziaur Rahman and other agriculture officials from the upazila and union.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.