It is surprising to find out how Mamata Birhor, a 35 years old woman from Birhor community of Dhengua Village of Jharkhand could change the land use practicing that had helped in fulfill the daily need of nutritious vegetables for her family. It is more interesting to witness how even during the COVID 19 pandemic period she could meet the sustenance need of her family.

The main occupation of Birhor is to make ropes out of the fibres of a particular species of vine which they sell in the nearby market. Some of them are now settled into stable agriculture but small land holding, lack of access to new skills and technologies, increasing production costs all put the forest fringe tribal farmers at an edge. The women who have to assume the role of care givers due to the cultural construct face the challenges daily to feed their family with nutritious food and to get some opportunity to support her family.
Mamata has received the training on establishment of Organic Nutrition Garden, production of organic inputs from IBRAD. She has started a nutrition garden and started cultivating different types of vegetables in organic manner. She produces Neemastra as pesticide and Amritjal as a growth promoter for the plants which she uses in her nutrition garden. Her daily needs are met from the nutrition garden from where she gets consumable vegetables like beans, brinjal, bottle gourd, tomato, various leafy vegetables. She will also sell the surplus to the market if she produces more vegetables.
Now she got the confidence that she can feed her family without going to the market. Her five children are now getting nutritious vegetables very easily and the mother of five children are now encouraging others to build kitchen garden in their vacant land.

Building capacity through training and monitoring can introduce a new knowledge in the Birhor tribal community of Dhengua Village of Jharkhand to improve their food security in a sustainable manner.