Roof Farming: An Unconventional Malnutrition Remedy

There is a common denominator across the malnutrition cases of Madhya Pradesh: most cases of malnutrition come from landless or marginal farming families. When you ask them why they do not grow vegetables, all that they can offer you in answer is a shrug of helplessness. “Where will we grow vegetables when we have no land?” asks Kanti Bai of Pachpeepal village of Rehli block in Sagar. Kanti Bai is a daily wager working on farms and construction sites.

There are thousands of Kanti Bais across the length and breadth of Madhya Pradesh who cannot grow vegetables because they do not have land. Even if they have small holdings of land, vegetable cultivation is not possible in the absence of irrigation facility.

For landless households, roof farming is an option for bridging the gap of nutrition supply. This pattern of farming pattern requires no land; it does not need an irrigation system either. There are instances where communities follow this; but they do not utilise the full potential of this system.

Vegetables like pumpkin, bottle gourd, luffa (gilki), runner beans (sem ballar), indigenous breeds of small tomatoes etc are good options for roof farming. The seeds of these vegetables could be planted along the walls in a 2-feet pit filled with mixture of cow dung and soil. Households that now practice landless farming do not report about lack of irrigation water. They irrigate the plant in an innovative way. The plant is grown at the same place where they normally wash the utensils. However, they make sure that water loaded with detergent is not reaching to the roots of the plant.

Households can grow small kitchen garden, as small as 2 square feet, and still get dependable supply of vegetables from this garden throughout the year. Other vegetables like okra (bhindi), egg plant (brinjal), chilli and coriander also could be grown in such small gardens.

The best way to address the malnutrition problems of landless households is identifying and promoting food producing methods that suit their conditions. These may not be sufficient to meet the entire nutritional needs of households but they indeed contribute to the solution. 

Bottle gourd grown on a roof

By: Saju MK, Caritas India