The plot grows and thickens from day to day
The plot thickens and grows from day to day as the partnership devises new ways of working. Even with the difficulties and fears of Covid, the community have worked hard to take the action required to establish a sustainable school meals project. The long term plan is that parents will either: –
- Pay money to the school to buy food;
- Provide food from their plots (shambas);
- Labour on the school shambas to grow the food, or
- Contribute to the meals in some or all of the above ways.
In this picture the plot grows sorghum which will be harvested for breakfasts.
When the rain falls the plot thickens day by day
The plot thickens when there is good rainfall. Sadly, due to climate change, the expected rain doesn’t come with the regularity it did in the past. Thankfully the rain has been sufficient this year and the picture shows how well the Feeding Futures kale is doing in the demo plot.
The demonstration (demo) plots use conservation farming methods as far as possible. This enables others to note any differences in health and yield of the crops grown.
Plans to grow more vegetables
Prior to Feeding Futures partnering with Mukinyai Primary School none of the school land was used to grow food. Once the partnership was established the school Board of Management (BoM) agreed with parents to use some of the land to grow food for the kitchen. Now that large areas are planted, the school brewed a plan to create a vegetable nursery.
The plot thickens as the BoM Chair shows the growth by inter-cropping
The school BoM plays a vital role in how the school runs. For Feeding Futures the BoM plays an important role in communicating and motivating the parents to take the action required to provide school meals long after Feeding Futures has finished work at Mukinyai. Inter-cropping has been used to produce maize and beans on the same plot. The beans will harvest before the maize matures. The beans will fix Nitrogen to feed the maize.
PLEASE note the growth from featured picture to the one below taken after much rain!
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