In fact NGOs and Private organizations play major role in education,awareness creation,model kitchen/nutrition garden development and demonstration.
It was the traditional wisdom of ancient inhabitants in warm humid tropics to grow plants and crops of family choice and make family self sufficient in food and nutrition. A kitchen garden has fruits,vegetables,spices and herbs,tuber crops and ornamentals to decorate family deity.
No outside labour was used, only family labour is used. Kitchen wastes are converted to manures and methane cooking gas.Irrigation water comes from adjescent well and ponds.The ancestors have prior knowledge on light/shade requirement of crops.Every available space is utilized including bio fences using chekkurmanis,basella,Ceylon spinach. Amaranth rich in iron and fibre was grown through out the year. Fruits like guava, bilimbi, tamarind, gooseberry, litchi, rambutan etc were grown based on temperature requirement of fruit trees. Spices like black pepper,ginger,turmeric,clove,nutmeg etc were also grown. Tubers like potato,Chinese potato,cassava,sweet potato and yams were also cultivated. With change in time technologies like hydroponics, aero ponics and aqua ponics to meet nutrition requirement of family have come up. I have a series HORTICULTURAL SCIENCES published by New India Publishing Agency New Delhi(www.bookfactoryindia.com).I compliment FAO for initiating such a discussion.
Dr K V Peter
Dr. Kuruppacharil V. Peter