Our Correspondent Hyderabad
A peasant woman, Hoori Bheel, residing in Village Ameen Soomro, near Kaloi town, Tharparkar district, has cultivated off-season vegetables at her courtyard to have safe food products at home.
Describing her tale, she said “I started kitchen gardening quite recently, producing a variety of vegetables at home and spared little space outside our makeshift abode.”
“For me it became possible when received water through a solar-powered facility.
Otherwise, several women are eager to have such gardens at their homes but due to unavailability of water they are yet to implement the idea,” she said.
“Many vegetables available at the home garden like coriander, green chilli, ridge gourd, eggplant, tomatoes and others do not grow in the wild in the desert after monsoon rains,” she said.
For example, she said “tomato, onion, coriander and green chilli are essential items, which the people usually purchase from markets.
But now we have produced these products at homes and share little to the relatives and family friends.”
Mithan Bheel, another farmer woman in the same village said “whenever we receive rains a variety of naturally grown wild vegetables and fruits like mushrooms, melon, watermelon, apple guards and other products grow near here.”
“We collect these products from the area for our own consumption and little extra for sell,” she said.
Talking to women it was observed that for these women growing vegetables plays an important role to fight poverty and diseases, which in the desert areas sometimes hit the people because of improper diet.
These women seem vocal and show wide space at courtyards and outside for growing fresh vegetables to fulfil their diet.
These women are lucky to have access to solar-powered water facilities near there to get water for domestic purposes and use the wastage water for producing vegetables and fruit trees.
