India: Prisons turning criminals into growers
Last year, Puzhal prison produced 1,000kg of pumpkin and brinjal along with other vegetables that managed to feed more than 2,000 people for a year. The vegetables, worth 5 lakh in the market, ensured that prisoners and staff members ate healthy food. And it did not cost the exchequer anything.
In the last three years, the nine central prisons in the state have produced vegetables like bottle gourd, broad beans, cluster beans, tomato, lady's finger, brinjal, spinach and radish and fruits like sapota, guava and papaya. The initiative was so successful that TUCS (Triplicane Urban Cooperative Society) last year thought of buying organic vegetables from Puzhal.
"The figures are just for vegetables produced on six acres. We have more than doubled the land cultivated to 15 acres, and expect the yield to be much higher," said a police officer. Just 30 inmates produced enough fruits and vegetables to feed an entire school full of children for a year.
The kitchen gardens were set up in 2011 as part of the 'green prisons' initiative that began in May 2009, when former ADGP R Natraj invited Nizhal, an NGO involved in tree planting, to make prisons greener. "The prisons have large tracts of land, between 80 acres and 120 acres, and we felt they could be used more effectively," says Shobha Menon of Nizhal. It decided to introduce organic farming in Puzhal in 2009 as a pilot project and slowly extended it to other prisons. "Experts guided them on soil specific choices of vegetable/fruit cultivation," says Menon.
The initiative of growing vegetables, now used by prison kitchens only, has, authorities believe, given the inmates an opportunity to learn another livelihood. "We realized this is something they could do in their own backyards. They could also go work as farmers," said the officer. "Today we hear that organically farmed vegetables are three times more expensive," he added. The inmates seemed sceptical at first. "Initially, 10-15 inmates participated, but by the end of the first year at Puzhal nearly 30 joined," said T D Babu, a volunteer.
Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com
