Backyard gardening brings prosperity to women farmers

Nalgonda: The innovative idea of backyard flower gardening inRayapuramvillage has brought change in their lives of women  and  provided year-long returns to them.

The small village of Ketepally mandal in Nalgonda district  has 120 families, of that 100 families are from agriculture background.   Women of the farmer families have started cultivating jasmine, lily, marigold , nut flowers, jasmine flowers.  On an average they are earning between Rs 400 and 600 per day and extending financial support to the families.

They are using bore wells dug at their homes to water the flower saplings. During the course of time they have learnttechniques of flower cultivation.  Besides growing flowers in the backyards of their houses , women are also cultivating  jasmine and marigold in vacant lands in their agriculture fields. The women are using minimum amount water for growing flowers. 

They sell the flowers at various places. They have got advantage of easy transportas the village islocatedclose to national highway -65 .

 Vendors from Nakrekal and Suryapet comes to the village to buy the flowers. There is huge demand for flowers during the festival days, marriage season and  temples celebrations.

At present the cost of a kilogram of jasmine is between Rs 200 and 300, lily is between Rs 400 and 550, and nut flowers (Jaji)  is between Rs 600 to 750. Women farmer Lurdha mary said  they are getting a year-long work with flower cultivation. 

In the morning  they collect the flowers and prepare flower garlands from afternoon to evening. During the flowers season some more get employment. 

Another women farmer Pasala Meramma  saidthe women of Rayadurgam village are getting good returns with flower cultivation. Lily blooms round the year and different flowers comes in different seasons. Rate of flowers would be decided with Market trends. It is better to cultivate flowers instead of cotton and paddy, she felt.