Ms. Gulnisa, a mother of seven children, lives in Layuba village around 10 km away from the local market in Faizabad, the capital district of Badakhshan, which is a north eastern province of the country. Badakhshan is one of the most food insecure, remote provinces in Afghanistan with scattered villages isolated by high mountains and frequently affected by harsh weather. Badakhshan is also among the provinces that has the highest child malnutrition and mothers mortality rate in the country.

Ms. Gulnisa lives in a village called Layuba, and she was selected by DAIL staff last spring as a member of women group. She has been a proactive member of the group, created by local agriculture staff, (home economic provincial staff) for the community. Gulnisa's interest and confidence increased in agriculture and food production as she received trainings and her awareness on agriculture and nutrition improved.

Before joining women group Ms. Gulnisa did not know about nutrition and importance of vegetables for household diet. Her skill in agriculture was very limited to traditional model of agriculture practices that include plowing of the field by a pair of bullocks and cultivating, harvesting and trashing of wheat, which requires heavy physical work and is primarily men's job. She did not know how to cultivate, irrigate, control the pests and harvest the vegetables. She was also unaware of vegetable harvesting and processing techniques, sell the surplus vegetables to local market and to generate income for her family. In the villages selling of vegetables are not appreciated, it is usually given for free to the neighbours.

Ms Gulnisa got quiet motivated by hearing that even a women in the village can grow vegetables, that vegetables are useful for health of her family and that even she can create some income through selling vegetables to the local market. However, doing all the chain of production, processing, marketing and storage work seemed impossible for Ms. Gulnisa when she joined the group in the beginning.

By receiving preliminary training on nutrition education and food production, motivated Gulnisa convinced her husband to support her. Ms. Gulnisa and her husband decided to allocate 3000 square meters of their land for growing vegetables. The piece of land is exclusively controlled by Ms. Gulnisa and her husband helps her whenever she needs some support. Ms Gulnisa has established small green house and cultivated eight types of vegetables that includes cabbage, onion, coriander, spinach, squash, cauliflower, lettuce, tomato, and mushroom. Some of the vegetables produced by Ms Gulnisa are consumed by household members. The surplus products are sold in the local market in Faizabad. As Afghanistan is male and female segregated society, her husband helps her in transportation and marketing.

Ms. Gulnisa said that "I helped my husband in construction of their house and supported my family financially". She is very confident now and is happy to be useful for her family.

Impact/Result
The interventions brought changes in capacity and skills of the lady to produce vegetables, improved diet diversity of the household and generated some income for the family.

Ms. Gulnisa Agriculture skills Improved.

Now Ms. Gulnisa knows how to prepare land, sow seeds properly, established small green house, produce and distribute seedlings. She also has the skills of proper irrigation, weeding and some pest management of vegetables. She also knows how to harvest to minimize loses of harvest and she is equipped with skills of small scale household level processing (making tomato paste, pickles, and draying techniques). She also understands how to pack the products from her garden and sell it to the local garden.

Her Family Consumes More Divers Food
Before producing vegetables on her piece of land Ms. Gulnisa children had monotonous diet. Now her children consume fresh vegetables in their daily food. Thus dietary of the household has improved. In nutrition education trainings she has learnt about importance of consuming vegetables and fruits in daily household foods.

Income Generated by Ms. Gulnisa
Ms Gulnisa earned total of 37700 Afs for her family that makes 628 USD. The vegetables consumed by her family costs 21150 Afs (353 USD) if it is bought from local market. For a household in a rural community it is a lot of many. In addition to that she earned 2100 Afs (35 USD) from selling tomato paste and pickles. The same amount of processed food her family consumed in off season that improved the family's dietary diversity.

Sustainability
When it is asked from Ms. Gulnisa about continuation of vegetable cultivation, she responded that she needs the income from vegetables and there is family support for her work to generate some income to the Family. In addition to that, her family also likes vegetables in their

* Project: Strengthening the role of women in Agriculture Development for Improved Household Food Security and Nutrition GCP/AFG/069/GER)
* Published: June, 2016