Closing ceremony of the sub project ‘Establishment of small holder growers for root and tuber crops and hme garden diversification for improved nutrition and livelihood in Aranayake area together with Community Development Center, Aranayake
Establishment of small holder growers for root and tuber crops and home garden diversification for improved nutrition and livelihood in Aranayake by Community Development center (CDC) and Biodiversity for Food and nutrition (BFN) project successfully completed within the time frame.
Closing ceremony was held at Community Development Center Aranayake on 31st August 2018 with the participation of farmer groups and officers from CDC and BFN project. Best farmer, Best farmer group were selected where all farmers felicitated with gifts to praise their hard work. Project was established aiming to promote local traditional yams in home gardens, improving utilization in diets for better nutrition, creating value chain and marketing platform for value added products developed and disseminating the knowledge generated towards a wider community while maintaining the sub project sustainably as a programme within the area.
Within a year of sub project duration, CDC has achieved a lot as an organization based among the rural community in Aranayake area. 70 families were selected for the yams cultivation and subsequent home garden diversification. Workshops and programmes have been conducted together with Department of agriculture on organic cultivation tactics, soil conservation methods, organic manure preparation, community based seed bank development and management of home gardens in a sustainable manner.CDC has also initiated women empowerment by selecting female farmers as community leaders by continuous assessment and monitoring of the work that has been initiated and carried out. Farmers were supplied with inputs as high quality planting materials, equipments, pest controlling fences to maintain their