Backyard gardens are a popular site at the villages across the North East Region (NER) and parts of the country. Backyard gardens are the source of food security, especially for smallholders. Such gardens are a source of nutrition for the smallholders and a major chunk of their food requirement is met from the backyard gardens. These gardens are seen with vegetables grown mostly with indigenous seeds. The smallholders as per their traditional agricultural calendars grow a variety of vegetables throughout the year in their backyard gardens. These vegetables are mostly grown atop a bamboo structure called ‘Chaang’ or Trellis. Such structures have either creepers or climbers growing.

Backyard gardens of late are being observed as not so productive or being able to serve as a source of food security to the smallholders in NER. Though such gardens are omnipresent, yet they have not been able to serve the purpose due to various reasons like non-availability of inputs and manpower etc, thus leading to a dependence on the external markets for food. The trellises observed in the backyard gardens are seen growing hardly a couple of vegetable crops in a given season. Such practices reach nowhere, and the smallholders are reduced to receiving a very minimal output in terms of food products.

Caritas India while promoting the smallholders for attaining food sovereignty tried to look closely at how these trellises could be redefined so the farmers receive maximum returns, thus reducing dependency on external sources for food. “From my past experiences, I tried to visualise a way on how these trellises could be modified with diverse vegetable crops by optimising the space available”, said Prabal Sen, Programme Associate, North East Zone.

Trellises, from what is seen needed a paradigm change so to upscale production levels. The main idea behind this is to generate maximum returns while utilising every inch of the space available. If smallholders adopt such models, they may be able to grow surplus food. The modified trellis is all about converting the pre-existing systems into a multi-tier cropping model that allows the growing of diverse crops.

The modified trellis could go a long way to serve the objective of attaining food sovereignty. Trellis speaks about using the resources available within a household for growing vegetables.

To begin with, one of the most omnipresent resources seen in this region are the bamboos and every household either grows it or gets it from the forests. Bamboo, strings, seeds, and available green biomass for composting are the basic requirements for designing a trellis. The fundamental thing while going for a trellis is carefully select a combination of vegetable species out of their traditional crop calendar for the given season. The selection would include a combination of pungent-smelling species like coriander, ginger, chilli, and others. These species help in repelling pests and therefore, protect the companion crops. Turmeric could also be a choice, especially for the nematodes. The next step is to decide on the space available and design the trellis structure accordingly. The posts used in the trellis could either have a pit dug or a basket placed to be used for composting. The number of pits in such cases could be as per the size of the or requirement of the trellis. “I have worked on several designs for experimentation of this model; however, the farmers can take a liberty to design the structure as per their needs,” said Prabal.

The core idea with the trellis is to look at the utilisation of the space available for maximum production. A trellis requires minimum inputs that can guarantee maximum returns. A smallholder can produce surplus food by utilising the minimum or maximum space available. Trellis can be a smallholder’s tool to secure his food by utilising resources that are easily available.

Gaining experience from the recent pandemic that challenged food security, Caritas India has put forward this model as a choice for smallholders under the FARM programme. It is expected that trellises would help farmers in strengthening food security.