In one of the streets of Omdurman, a group of youth planted the neighborhood square with vegetables. The production was abundant and contributed to feeding the people of the neighborhood and supporting the (Takaya) during the war.
Another experience was attributed to a woman living in a Khartoum neighborhood. She used the empty house neighboring her home , which people used as a garbage dumping area: she first removed the garbage and cleaned and planted it vegetables. The proprietor of the house liked the outcome and he even offered her his land to use free of any charge.
These are two cases, and one would wonder how many empty squares and areas are there near our homes and inside our towns and villages??!!!
To examine the vital importance of home Gardening in the Sudanese community, Sudanow interviewed Engineer Ammar Hassan Bashir Abdullah who leads the Food Security Administration – Federal Ministry of Agriculture, and the Founder of the Sudan Food Security Network to shade more light about the issue.
Home Gardening is primarily meant to secure basic food needs for the family living in their homes and are working to use empty spaces as small farms or what is known in Sudanese colloquial Arabic as “Jabareek” to secure food for the residents and self-sufficiency or help in alleviating the burdens of living, by marketing the surplus of it, including vegetables and fruits.
But these same areas when cultivated play a major role in providing most of the family’s requirements, especially if the practice is tuned into agro-farming (plant and animal production). This is based on the fact that many Sudanese families especially in rural areas raise animals, poultry and birds to secure milk and meat.
Many families are relying on Home Gardening and have advanced and developed the practice to the extent that they no longer need to go to the market to buy the majority of their needs. They could now produce their subsistence need within the wall of their houses.
Engineer Ammar says that there are other elements and outcome that stress the importance of home Gardening, which is encouraging children and every amateur within the family to enhance their skill of agricultural work and contribute in enhancing production. The simple planting of a seed in a plot of Land or raising animals and birds to encourage people practice agricultural work aimed at self-sufficiency.
As a byproduct it helps people reduce unemployment and practice a hobby useful for the whole community.
He argued that home gardening does not require much effort or large spaces as it can be practiced on the roofs of houses and inside residential apartments and balconies and there are models that do not use large spaces but their production is large enough for the family’s needs.
He argued that in light of the current war if families were able to practice home gardening it would save them a lot and would limit displacement from one place to another in search for food. People become more vulnerable the more they increase their movements. He added that if every citizen was able to plant a small piece of land inside his house or apartment he would produce and be satisfied and find benefit.
