Linking Agriculture with Early Childhood Development:The case of Gandini Community

Photo: Development Horizons

Child malnutrition remains a big problem for children in Kwale County and despite the statistics on the same lacking, areas like Kinango, Samburu and Gandini seems worst hit. Poor nutrition affects both the physical and  intellectual development of the child concerned. By malnutrition in this case, i look at the lack of vital vitamin and mineral nutrients in a diet as opposed to the Protein-energy malnutrition. Read more on the difference here 

Having worked in the area for quite some time, i noted that consumption of greeny vegetables was not considered of paramount importance in the county. The most valued food stuff was maize. With a harvest of maize crop everyone is considered full and satisfied and its no shock to realize that the stew that goes with it is a mixture of table salt and water. Well in terms of quantity, these ECD going children are getting filled but quality wise, their bodies are just being fed regularly with only carbohydrates.

Its because of these reasons that i thought of introducing the aspect of sack gardening to the Gandini community. It happens to be one of the worst poverty hit areas. Notwithstanding is the fact that the area is adjacent to Moi International Airport. While taking off from the airport,its the area you mostly see with mud-walled makuti houses. I chose sack-gardening bearing in mind that the area gets quite dry and water scarcity isn't a once in a lifetime issue. And sack/container gardens happen to be the least consumers of water.With the help of Plan Kwale education program, i set out to train them on how to go about preparing the sacks and the containers to make them suitable for planting vegetables. The first crop selection was kales, Amaranthus and spinachs. To inculcate the gardening culture, we preferred to have the sacks placed near the nursery school.

The initial demonstration plot.
This we chose to be in the homestead of the chairperson of the Gandini village elders. A sample of kales and spinaches were prepared in the nursery bed and later transplanted  to help convert the theory into practice.

The preparations stage

My colleagues, the chairman  and i (Photographer) inspecting the sacks.

The sample demo plots
Notice the yellowed leaves where there was over-watering in this case.

The results
I left the organization i was working with then and i happen to be getting the progress of the project via twitter and phone calls.To my knowledge as of now, the project has spread to neighboring school and hopefully by mid next year, we will have substantive data to give a success story of how agriculture can be interlinked with Nutrition.

cc @emmiewakio your project is doing really well...wish you were still around pic.twitter.com/1ubKHw8Ygf
— Joy Nafungo (@maben12) August 22, 2013

The buck doesn't stop there. The aspect of consuming vegetables for their nutrient value is still minimal in the area. Hence the vegetables farming and consumption gospel has to be preached continuously as  having the vegetables and not consuming brings no difference in the lives the ECD children and their families.

PS:
Have a look at the average nutrient contents in various indigenous vegetables......

Sack Gardening

The cost of vegetables at the Kenyan Coast is sky rocketting and going by the looming economic crisis, many families are forced to make do without vegetables in their main meals. This drove me to searching for a better option for growing vegetables and going by the fact that land is a limitation in urban centers,an idea i saw during last year Agricultural Society of Kenya Show-Sack gardens resurfaced.

From World Concern Blog

The sack gardening/bag gardening. Maybe you have heard of it. Maybe not. It involves planting vegetables like Kales,Spinach,Brocolli,Tomatoes and Onions in a sack filled with the growing matter.Being an organic farmer i prefer the use of compost manure to fertilizers and the use of homemade pesticides as compared to the conventional pesticides. Its a simple way of gardening and can utilise waste water from the kitchen as part of irrigation,hence comes with a recycling component on it.


Materials you will need:
1.A woven sisal sack. Note:1m3 sack provides about 5m2 accesible farm area.
2.A 2 litre plastic CocaCola bottle with both ends cut off to make a tube.In case of a smaller bag,you can use a smaller bottle.
3.Stones or gravel
4.A mixture of animal manure with some well draining top soil.
5.A knife to cut the bag.

Step by step illustration:

1. Create a base on the sack bottom by filling it with soil.Place the cut bottle on the centre of the sack and fill it with gravel and stones. Fill the sides with soil. Continue doing so until you almost reach the top of the bottle.

2. Continue with the gravel and soil process until you reach the brim of the sack.The stones and gravels are used as a watering system whereby  water is poured on the bag and seeps through the soil helping to water the whole bag.

3.Make/cut holes on the  sides of the sack where you desire to plant the seedlings.Let them have some even distances apart.

4. Transplant your seedlings on the selected sites. Plant some on the top of the sack too.

5. Continously care for the seedlings by watering them through the rock channel created. Harvest the produce on a continuos basis till the growing season is over.At that point you can empty the old used soil and replace it with new growing matter.


 Note: Sack gardens require not only water but also enough sunlight to flourish well.


Embedded below is a video on the same by Solidarites and the sack project they had on Kibera slums ,Kenya

For more resources on the same, see the A Garden in a Sack: Experiences in Kibera,Nairobi


Enjoy and share! :)