Asia Pacific Rayon Supports Local Community Vegetable Gardens | Asia Pacific Rayon Skip to main content

Asia Pacific Rayon (APR) has been supporting the government’s Rumah Pangan Lestari (RPL) scheme which encourages rural households in Indonesia to produce food for their own use as well as to increase the family income.

The company is hosting activities coordinated by local integrated health centres, or Posyandus, that work in parallel with the family nutrition programme on the prevention of child stunting. As a first step, training for the 93 integrated healthcare workers took place in December 2019. The healthcare workers were trained in local food sources that could supplement the nutrition for toddlers and expectant mothers. The RPL and the local supplementary nutrition programme gave mothers recommendations for setting up vegetable plots in their yards. The produce could be used to supplement nutritional needs of the household.

According to Binahidra Logiardi, the Community Development Coordinator, “Apart from the vegetable patches, Posyandu’s health outreach coordinators were taught about growing crops, cultivation and were introduced to local varieties of plants that meet the three staple food groups, carbohydrates, fruits & vegetables, and protein sources. Carbohydrate sources include yams, corn, cassava, fruit & vegetable sources such as bay leaves, mustard greens and protein sources including fish, chicken and duck.

Asia pacific rayon community development program
“This work is an extension of the community health outreach programme and equipping families with the means to provide more balanced nutrition for the household. Surplus of the produce can be sold or processed,” said Binahidra.

The RPL has been implemented in integrated health centres in two sub-districts in Pangkalan Kerinci, Riau. The main beneficiaries of the program are lower income households where malnutrition is of concern, with a particular focus on expectant mothers and young children under the age of six.

APR intends to develop more initiatives like the kampung gizi program where all village members can benefit from awareness on family nutrition.

 

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