By Tapaswini Mohapatra Samant, Architect, Environment Designer, Interior Designer.
It used to be all the rage to start small gardens at homes or on balconies, but now it will be a roar. As our parents told us, gardening is calming. It is proven that physical interaction with living plants is good for our mental health. Growing what you eat is pleasant and gives you some freedom from your daily routine, particularly during self-isolation.
Covid lockdowns are pushing more city dwellers to grow fruit and vegetables in their homes, providing a potentially lasting boost to urban farming. It is an advantage presently to have a kitchen garden, in future it might become necessity.
Quarantine is perhaps the best time to get to know more about indoor gardens how to cultivate plants from seeds and create a food allotment, even if you live in a multi-storey building. In addition to producing food, indoor gardens can provide oxygen.
People, planners and government should all be rethinking how land is used in cities and further in individual houses. Urban farming can improve food security and nutrition; reduce climate change impacts, and lower stress.
There is also a host of start-ups facilitating small scale urban farming, for individual homes and for institutions like schools. Some examples are Jaipur-based company The Living Greens , offers to help set up and maintain organic urban rooftop farms, Ikheti, which offers similar services in Mumbai and Pune, Delhi-based Khetify and Edible Routes, Hyderabad-based Homecrop, and Bengaluru-based Greentechlife and Squarefoot Farmers. While there are plenty of hobbyists, and family-and-friends farmers, there is a long way to go before rooftop farming is serious business in India.
Civic bodies like the corporation of Thiruvananthapuram have initiated larger scale, sustainable initiatives to help citizens grow healthy fresh produce locally. Residents are offered services and subsidised kit to grow up to 30 vegetable varieties.
A wise proposal, each downtown district (especially one living in residential apartments) would have a minimum of some percentage of agriculture zone allocated within its boundary and would be accessible to public.
“A green gesture today might be a mandate need tomorrow.”
Corporate Comm India (CCI Newswire)
