A concept I liked in Germany!!!

During my earlier visits to Germany most of the time I stayed in a city called Mannheim and never had a chance to experience the village side of Germany and more importantly on the farming side. The other reason was that all my past visits were during winter time and i couldn't see anything in the farm field.

This time I am lucky enough to get an opportunity to travel during summer and that too for a long duration.......... thanks to SAP ..
I stay in a village called Nussloch which is around 10KM from Heidelberg. The village is surrounded by lots of farm field and was impressed by the way farming is done here. Many times my parents and people at my village were asking how the farming is done in Germany? what they grow? how the farmers live? do they have animals in the farm field?.....many questions and this time I am happy that I have lots of information to share with them.
Now will come to an interesting concept, one day while talking to our house owner, I casually asked them where do they buy vegetables. He said, we don't buy the vegetables. I was surprised by this answer, then i asked do you eat meat all the time? He said, NO, we eat vegetables all the time but we grow them in our garden. I was again surprised and asked him are you a farmer? He said, I am not a farmer but have rented  small portion of land where in we grow the vegetables and fruits. This was very interesting for me and I visited their garden one day to see how it is and what they grow.I saw almost all the vegetables (Onions, carrot, cauliflower, tomato, beans, potato, sweet potato .......) and fruits (apples, cherry, grapes.....) in the garden. Due to long winter season they only grow these vegetables during summer, these vegetables are stored in a cold storage and consumed for rest of the year. Amazing right? You can see some pictures below taken at their garden.

 

A small garden of my house owner

Just to outline how the concept works:

• Govt has created has mad small plots at the outskirts of the village
• People can approach the government and rent the plot.
• One need to pay some yearly subscription fees for it

I feel this is an interesting concept and would make sense if implemented in India as well. Especially this could be useful for the middle class retired people where in they get very less pension but vegetable prices are increasing every year. Also its kind of a time pass for them and they keep themselves busy doing some work in their garden.
If you as well find it interesting and if you can influence the government/government officials on this concept, kindly go ahead and explain them the concept!!!!