Today, we have read with great interest an article published by the Bangladesh’s Independent News Source THE NEW NATION :

http://nation.ittefaq.com/issues/2008/06/23/news0218.htm

Homestead gardening becoming popular in Barind area by BSS, Rajshah

Let us have a quick look at some of the salient points :

1. Marginal farmers and the poor people in the vast region are mostly engaged in gardening around their homesteads in both summer and winter seasons by making the best use of spaces around their homes with production of different fruits and vegetables.
2. The Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) and Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute (BARI) have been providing all-out cooperation with necessary training and required inputs to the farmers to grow fruits and vegetables for their own consumption and extra earning by selling those.
3. Use of vacant spaces for producing fruits and vegetables has been seen as potential means for gradual development in the life of downtrodden in the region.
4. Implementation of various types of need-based programmes offers the farmers possibilities to produce traditional fruits and vegetables round the year.
5. The On-Farm Research Division (OFRD) of BARI has established crop museums at different areas in the region, which have created a positive impact, encouraging a large number of farmers to grow such fruits and vegetables as well as other crops by using the modern method.
6. BARI is providing required inputs and quality seeds to the growers of different types of vegetables.
   
7. The farmers are also planting different fruit-bearing trees.
8. The method of growing these fruits and vegetables has increased resource utilisation side by side with enhancing use of modern varieties of vegetable crops and quality seeds in the farming ground.
9. Women of farmers’ families are increasingly getting involved in the respective productive ventures.——————-

   
   2008-03 : India/Tamil Nadu : SCAD-project : Preparation of family gardens around the house. (Photo SCAD).

   
   2008-05 : India/Tamil Nadu : SCAD-project : The first remarkable successes. (Photo SCAD).

   
   2008-04 : India/Tamil Nadu : SCAD-project : Training and capacity building of farmers by SCAD/KVK engineers. (Photo SCAD).

   
   2008-05 : India/Tamil Nadu : SCAD-project : Field preparation with soil conditioning. (Photo SCAD).

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   I am really impressed! The Bangladesh article above is confirming my deepest conviction that homestead gardening (the creation of family gardens and school gardens) is one of the best tools to combat desertification and to alleviate poverty, in particular for the poor rural people in the drylands.  Therefore, let me invite all potential donors, development banks, United Nations Agencies, service clubs and private investors to consider application of these success stories at the largest scale. Many pearls make a nice necklace!

   The “miracle” of seeing small family gardens and school gardens already flourishing a few months after their creation with a minimal investment should be the clearest signal for anyone of us that this is “not a miracle”, but pure logic. These small “green pearls” do not have the well-known inconveniences of the huge, and extremely costly big projects and programmes. They can be managed by the local people themselves and do never become a “ruin” after the donor has left.

   Why do we recognize that some methods are “the best practices”, if we do not apply them at the largest scale? Why, dear ladies and gentlemen? Silence is never a symphony!