In a country where nearly a third of under-fives are anaemic, a lack of vegetables has contributed to poor health and high cancer rates. Now, that\u2019s beginning to change as tomatoes, cucumber and celery are cultivated<\/p>\n
Carrots, cabbages and potatoes were the only vegetables ever served up to Zina Zaya. Never as a child, but in the canteen of the factory where she worked as a seamstress in the 1970s. Vegetables were hard to come by in the Mongolian People\u2019s Republic, she recalls, and work lunches were for decades the only time she saw vegetables, and only those three.<\/p>\n
But now, aged 76, an impressively large greenhouse stands outside Zaya\u2019s ger, <\/em>a traditional Mongolian circular felt tent. She lives there with her daughter, Naranchimeg, and grows tomatoes and cucumbers, celery, a wide array of greens \u2013 including Naranchimeg\u2019s favourite, broccoli \u2013 and more than 10 other varieties.<\/p>\n