Mrs. Taj Gul, a Widow Women, in Kitchen Gardening:

Mrs. Taj Gul, 42 years old women, lives in Pol-Qazi village of Herat’s Karokh district. She is a widow and the mother of five children. Her husband was martyred eight years ago. She has been covered by the SNaPP2 program in the kitchen gardening, one of the activities of SNaPP2 project, and last year cultivated tomato in 300 square meters of yard.

She said that she received training in the field of vegetables, new improved tomato seeds, okra, spinach, and onions seeds from the SNaPP2 program, as well as farming kits such as sprinklers, shovels. She has also received, gloves, sprayers, etc.
Mrs. Taj Gul, was able to earn 40,000 AFN (around 550 USD) from hand-picked vegetables last year. She then invested 16,000 AFN of her vegetables income buying four sheep at a price of 4,000 AFN each. She fed the sheep the forage of her kitchen gardens for four months and then sold the sheep at 10,000 AFN each, which she earned 24,000 AFN.

The widow women added that she earns on an average a total of 6,000 to 8,000 AFN a month through selling vegetables and lamb sales, with an annual income of 70,000 to 80,000 AFN (around 1100 USD). She added that her income has increased about 50% due to the technical support, trainings and improved vegetable seeds and technical advices which she has received from the project.
Mrs. Taj Gul says that she also saves about 40% of her income while covering her family livelihood expenses. She also adds that, the neighboring women in her village have come to see and copy her intervention techniques and experiences.
Further, Mrs. Taj Gul planned to furnish a piece of her land for tomato demo plot. She expects to receive at least 80,000 AFN from this demo plot since she gained good experiences from kitchen gardening last year.
Finally, she also mentioned her future plans, saying that she wants to build a flower nursery and grow flowers along with vegetables, as she expects that it will have domestic and foreign markets.