Vol. 9, Issue 5, Part H (2025)

Agriculture-Nutrition Pathways for Achieving the Sustainable Development Goal-2 (SDG2) in Bihar reveals in pathway 2 under Household access to diverse foods. A diversification of production at the farm-level can allow households to access and consume a diverse set of foods throughout the year. Keeping this view in mind a comparative study was done in five villages under Samastipur and Muzaffarpur district of Bihar under Nutri Smart Village Programme during 2022 and 2023. Under this programme Bargama, Kanua and Harpur villages were selected under Samastipur district and Jarawanpur and Daudal were selected under Muzaffarpur district. A baseline survey was conducted to know the different types of vegetables and fruits grown, area under vegetable production, total production and consumption, sale of vegetables and net income through vegetable production. Under this programme seasonal seeds, seedlings of vegetables and fruit plants along with layout plan was provided and data were collected from thirty households from each village. Awareness training programme for importance of vegetables and its value added products were also organized in these villages. The data from Bargama village under Samastipur district revealed that there was change in Household Dietary Diversity related to vegetable consumption during 2022-2023. The total production of other vegetable and green leafy vegetables was increased from 11.16 Q to 28.79 Q during 2022-23 which showed 158 percent improvement in production of vegetable. They also started to cultivate banana for vegetable consumption and produced 71 q banana. The consumption of these vegetables were also increased during this period from 8.17Q to 16.75 Q, which showed an increase in 105 percent improvement in consumption. There was also an increase in type of vegetable grown and they moved from an average of eight type of vegetables to thirteen types of vegetable. They included French beans, lobia, kusum, Shimla mirchand beet root in their kitchen garden. The area under potato and maize production was started to replaced by vegetable production.