55-year-old Griva has just embarked on a new business venture.
Griva has long been involved in the agricultural sector in Humla. A member of a local ‘agricultural co-operative’, her family cultivates 15 plots of farmland. Despite their hard work, Griva and her family often struggle to produce enough food to support themselves.
“Our crops and produce are enough to feed my family for only few months,” Griva says. “Without employment, there is always a lack of money for household expenses and other management. Last year was even more difficult for our family due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Through Adara’s food security and agricultural projects, Griva and her family received the tools and training to build a greenhouse to increase their production of green vegetables all year round. She now grows a range of crops such as swiss chard, coriander, tomatoes, cabbage and onions.
Through our recent Humla household survey, we could understand how greenhouses impact the community. The survey highlighted that only 1% of households reported that they could grow enough to provide food security for seven months or more per year before they had access to a greenhouse.
In comparison, 84% of households can now grow enough food to support their households for seven months or more, thanks to the greenhouses we have supported them to build and utilise. From 2005 to 2022, 459 greenhouses have been built in 20 villages in Humla.
“In the past, we never grew, saw or ate green vegetables during the winter season,” Griva says. “It was customary to eat food mixed with salt and dry vegetables. Due to poor nutrition, children were malnourished and the elderly in my family became ill.”
Not only has the greenhouse improved the health and nutrition of Griva and her family, but it has allowed Griva to sell her excess produce to support her family.
“Since I started earning money from selling vegetables, I don’t have to ask for money from my husband for household expenses“
Griva
Griva looks forward to seeing her family continue to thrive thanks to Adara’s food security and agriculture projects.
Looking forward, throughout 2023, we will expand our agricultural support to more directly equip and train farmers in modern farming techniques. With climate change causing increasingly dangerous weather conditions, community resilience and disaster relief are growing areas of our work. Through infrastructure and agriculture projects, we ensure communities are prepared for, and able to respond to, natural and human-made disasters. We also improve food security and nutrition outcomes by improving agriculture skills, knowledge and technology so that people have increased access to nutritious food.
Read more about the change you helped create in our 2022 Operations Report.
