“It is the time to create dreams of agripreneurship
based on sustainable use of local resources with the principle of Local people
– Local Food – Local economy and school gardens must be the start.”- Farmer Samir Bordoloi
Food is life and
people need to have good food. Future diseases in the world can be taken care
by making good food eating habit rather than depending on too much of
pharmaceuticals. Food that people eat must be nutritious , suitable to the
local eating habit of the people and must be grown out of locally available
indigenous crops so that dependence on food industries become less to maintain
a quality food supply to the humanity . This requires respect towards the local
indigenous food crops and one must learn to grow their own food. Increase in
the world population has led to a heavy demand of food which is leading to
production of food through high yielding varieties of crops which are also
genetically modified and intensive agricultural production
system with the use of maximum tillage , hybrid seeds , extensive use of
chemical fertilizers and pesticides leading to unsafe food items concerning
health of the population . This intensive farming system is forcing extensive
pressure on the Farmer’s most valuable resource ‘the soil’ , and in many places
of the world the soil is becoming unproductive due to losing its quality. With
the intensive farming system , the cost of cultivation is going very high and
farmer is finding difficult to make profit in farming and many rural youths
have left farming as their profession leading the whole food production into
the hands of Corporations in the Food Industry . Hunger of the Food
Corporations to make more profit has degraded the quality of the food which are
less nutritious compared to local food items. With life becoming so fast for
the humanity , the concept of having a small kitchen garden at home is fading
away and people are going out of the habit of gardening . So it’s important to
inculcate the concept of growing own food among the children and students to
keep the tradition of farming retain to the human populations rather than
giving it to machines .
Child’s
Nutrition is better when the child enjoys eating food that is served . The
corporations have lots of ways and means to lure the child towards those food
items which are less nutritive and not safe in comparison to indigenous food .
When the child learns to plant a food crop and he harvest it and takes in his
diet , the kid is happy to eat own grown food . So making them grow their own
food also develops the interest of the kid on the food he/she is eating leading
to proper digestion and consumption. Hence, an organic school nutrition garden
can be a beautiful tool to develop nutritional stewardship among young minds.
The garden can also be a tool to provide Activity-based learning to the
students by linking their textbook contents to the garden activities . It can
also build a scientific temperament among young minds as their curious brain in
the garden area will make them to search for many solutions . Gardening is
another best method to inculcate lots of life skills like passion , compassion
, love , patience , problem solving attitude etc. among young minds.
There is need of
a systematic approach to include Organic Nutrition gardening as an activity
based learning programme for the school kids . Students need to learn the
simple techniques of growing their own food and also work towards bringing back
the local food wisdom of the place . God created some crops specific to certain
area which can provide healthy and nutritious food to those people living in
the particular area. These are all local varieties of herbs , fruits and
vegetables which grow well in the local conditions . As food is a big business
as everybody in the world needs food , it’s the big Corporations who want to
dominate the food industry . There is a hunger of the corporations to make
people of the world eat those food items those can be under their control .
They are in a race to shift the food habit of local people with local food into
foods that are manufactured by them . Even they are up to changing farming of
local crops to some hybrid and genetically modified crops for which the farmers
will be always dependent on the market right from the seed to harvest.
When for the
first time the child learns about food in schools , they learn more about the
exotic food items . A child learning vegetables from a Chart in the Nursery
class get exposed to pictures of hybrid and those vegetables which are not
local and whose seeds the farmer cannot keep for the next season . Thus , from
Nursery onward the food identification is shifted to some crops that are not
local . It’s important to bring back the local food wisdom and school nutrition
gardens with local crops can sow the seed of local people eating local food and
building strong local economy in the mind-set of the future responsible
citizens. Christ in the Bible has mentioned that when he created man , he
created food for human beings by creating some herbs that yield seeds. It’s
clearly mentioned to eat those herbs as food that produces viable seeds to carry
on the legacy.
To make farming
profitable , cost of cultivation has to be brought down . Dependency on
external inputs has to be reduced by sustainable use of provincial natural
resources. Utilization of locally available resources in farming is done since
generations . But these practices are vanishing due to the chemical intensive
modern day farming system . But the bad effects of chemical fertilizers and
pesticides and as a whole the Industrial Agriculture has
As Sustainable
Development Goal aims at conserving nature and sustainable use of natural
resources in farming , plans are made to conserve seeds , soil , water and
other resources. In the same way it is the time to conserve farming as a
profession as most of the rural youths are migrating out of farming as a
livelihood. If farmer’s kids doesn’t come to farming , the whole food industry
will move to the hands of big Corporations. Thus , farmers must be converted to
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