By Sultana Khatun from Rajshahi
Beli Begum is living at village Dighipara of Darshonpara union under Karnohar police station. Her husband is a farmer. Economically they are not solvent. She is struggling to enhance her income. She decided to grow vegetables in-front of the house. Simultaneously she started poultry, goat rearing and hand embroidery.
All the efforts help the family a lot. Observing her initiatives, BARCIK’s staff member talked with her and selected her house as Shoto Bari/ Nutrition Bank. BARCIK gave her vegetable seed and net to fence the vegetable garden including advice for farming crops from BARCIK.
Beli Begum sells red amaranth, spinach, bottle gourd, Indian spinach (puishak), lemon etc. She is earning cash by selling vegetables that makes her family solvent. She is also sharing vegetables with the neighbors. Beli Begum said, ‘Indeed Shoto Bari/ Nutrition Bank helped me a lot. I learnt about the importance of bio-fertilizer, seed conservation and seed exchange. And also came to know about proper use of land. Received BARCIK material supports and advice.’ She went on saying, ‘I can also meet nutrition demand of my family members through consuming the chemical free vegetable and milk and meat from my livestock.’
She also said that her vegetables are chemical free; hence, most of the vegetables are sold from her house. Thus, she often does not need to take those vegetable to market for sale. She is now comparatively economically solvent compared to her past life. Seeing Beli Begum’s success to farm diverse organic vegetable three women of the village have been inspired by her initiative and started to grow different vegetables in a small part of their courtyard.
Translated by Rumaisa Samad
