Ramachandran K G
Nutritional security is the need of the hour in most tribal settlements. Several studies reveal that the malnourishment is a very common issue among some of these indigenous community people living in Nilambur valley. The community people here depend mainly on the Public Distribution System (PDS) for their food needs. Their dependence on PDS has increased over a time. Many of them even stopped collecting uncultivated food from their vicinity because of this dependence. Hence, the rich diversity of food options are gradually disappearing from their dining space.
Almost all indigenous community people in Nilambur area are traditionally hunter gatherers. Most of them are either landless or left with only small amount of land. None of these communities were doing farming in the past. Tubers and vegetables are some of the significant sources of nutritional elements much needed for the health of the people. But, in the changed social conditions and since their dependence on wild food has come down, we encouraged small but diverse vegetable gardens around their home.
During the last year, seeds of different varieties of the vegetables were given to many families. We found that that the germination of most of the distributed seeds was below 50%. Some families have not even sown the seeds that were given. This time we have changed our strategy. At present, we raise the saplings through our nurseries and have already given 5 local varieties of vegetable saplings to 100 families in 6 different tribal settlements of the Nilambur valley. This method seems more successful, and people are happier to receive the saplings rather than seeds for which the germination is not completely predictable.
