School gardens in Kajiado are supporting nutritious meals while teaching learners practical food production skills.
The initiative links smallholder farmers with schools, creating markets and strengthening local food supplies.
Climate-smart farming practices help schools and households conserve water, diversify diets and withstand drought.
School gardens are emerging as an important tool for improving nutrition and building climate resilience among learners and communities in Kajiado County.
Through the Scaling Up Homegrown School Feeding project, schools are being encouraged to grow food for their meals while teaching learners practical skills in agriculture and nutrition.
FAO Kenya agriculture specialist Esther Wambui said school gardens could help institutions supplement their meals while giving learners practical knowledge that could be transferred to their homes.
“The idea is not only to produce food for schools but also to teach learners how food is produced and how they can replicate these practices at home,” Wambui said.
The project is being piloted in Kajiado, Embu and Tharaka Nithi counties, with FAO working with Light Up Hope in Kajiado to support school gardens and link farmers with schools.
At PCEA Naserian and Paranae Comprehensive Schools, model gardens are being used to demonstrate crop production techniques that can be adopted by schools, farmers and households.
Wambui said women’s groups were also being trained in climate-smart agriculture to enable them to produce nutritious crops despite changing weather conditions.
She said the programme would also create markets for smallholder farmers by connecting them with schools that require food for their feeding programmes.
“We have to find ways of how we can reach ten million, and one of the ways is through supporting our smallholder farmers to do the production, then they aggregate their produce and sell to schools as a market,” she said.
The initiative supports the Government’s target of providing school meals to 10 million learners by 2030, compared with the current 2.6 million.
Wambui said the programme was also promoting dietary diversity, with schools being encouraged to include vegetables, eggs and other locally available nutritious foods in addition to maize and beans.
Building resilience to drought
Light Up Hope President Kelly Shaugnessy said climate change and unreliable rainfall were putting pressure on food production and household food supplies in many arid and semi-arid areas.
She said children were particularly vulnerable to poor nutrition, which could affect their health, growth and ability to learn.
“We need to strengthen local food production so that schools and communities can withstand drought and ensure children have access to nutritious food,” Shaugnessy said.
She said water-efficient irrigation, soil conservation and crop diversification were among the measures being promoted to help communities cope with prolonged drought and erratic rainfall.
At Paranae Primary School, headteacher Timothy Lemaiyan said the school had already seen positive changes since adopting the initiative.
“Since the initiative started, our enrollment has gone up, performance has improved, and pupils now enjoy balanced diets that have boosted their nutrition,” Lemaiyan said.
Lemaiyan said the garden was also serving as an outdoor classroom, allowing pupils to gain hands-on experience in agriculture and environmental conservation.
He said the practical lessons could help learners develop skills that would benefit them and their families beyond the classroom.
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The project is being implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), in partnership with the World Food Programme (WFP) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), with funding from the Government of Sweden.
By Kimutai Langat
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