Mr. and Mrs. Behra in their home garden.

The village of Balibhoi Sahi, located 40 km north of the state capital of Bhubaneshwar, was one of the worst affected by the floods. At 9 pm on the night of September 10 the levee bank on the nearby Kushubhadra River broke and with less than half an hour’s warning all homes in the area were submerged by more than 2 meters of water. Terrified villagers escaped in the dark to the only nearby high ground on a canal bank and stayed there for four days until the water subsided. Three people were killed, waterlogged mud-walled homes collapsed, rice crops were badly damaged, and gardens were completely destroyed.

With an onsite presence spanning four decades, CRS was able to respond quickly; within six days, the organization was delivering emergency supplies to 3000 affected families in 53 villages and hamlets. The process of rebuilding followed and AVRDC was asked to provide disaster seed packs of highly nutritious vegetables to help affected families.

In mid-October, 3000 seed packs containing six leafy vegetables with planting instructions in English were sent to Orissa. M Ravishankar, an AVRDC staff member based in nearby Jharkhand state, then ran a one-day training course for CRS staff on growing leafy vegetables. CRS translated the planting instructions into the local language, Oriya, and provided this along with the seed packs.

At four seed fairs in affected villages families received cash vouchers to buy agricultural supplies from local vendors. Women were strongly encouraged to attend and CRS targeted them to receive the AVRDC seed packs.

Over the following weeks CRS extension workers employed from local NGOs visited each village on a weekly basis, encouraging families to try their AVRDC seed packs; the gentle prompting led to the high adoption rate.

Mr. and Mrs. Jambeswar Behra in Gop village already have harvested their AVRDC spinach ten times, and are very happy with this new addition to their diet.  Like most other gardens, theirs is fenced to keep out livestock; old fishing nets are commonly used fencing material. Although the Behra’s were familiar with most vegetables in the seed pack, they never had been able to obtain seed before, and were very pleased to get it. All their produce is consumed at home.

Four winter-growing vegetables have been planted in most nearby gardens and over the next couple of months perennial summer crops kangkong and basella also will be sown. With the exception of mustard, no crops have experienced any pests or diseases and by keeping seed or cuttings these home gardens can become permanent sources of family nutrition.