Impact of Sack Gardening By Youth in a Ugandan School Garden Program

School garden programs (SGPs) provide experiential learning to develop pupils’ agriculture skills for future livelihoods in developing countries.  The Iowa State University, SGP in Uganda conducted a sack gardening workshop in 2013 in the Kamuli District at Namasagali Primary School.  The goals of the program were to educate youth about sack gardening, a low-input, small-scale production system, and provide materials for youth to construct their own sack gardens at home.   Sack gardens are constructed by using 100-kg feed sacks, filled with soil placed on top of 23 cm of 4-cm diameter rocks. Vegetables are produced in slits cut into the sack’s sides and in the open top.  Sack gardening provides for the production of vegetables in a small area.  Youth may consume the vegetables with their families or generate income by selling the vegetables.  In 2015 a follow-up survey was completed with the youth participants of the 2013 sack gardening workshop.   Forty-eight pupils participated in the 2013 workshop.  Forty-one pupils were believed to be living in the district and available to survey.  We completed assent, consent, and surveys with 21 pupils (51%).  Of the 21 pupils surveyed, all (100%) remembered the workshop, described sack gardening, and stated the steps needed to create a sack garden.  Eighty-six percent of survey respondents harvested produce and considered their first sack garden successful.  Thirty-eight percent of surveyed pupils continued using sack gardens after the first crop, and 5% currently use sack gardens.  When asked why pupils quit using sack gardens, 36% of survey participants responded that they had no access to vegetable transplants, 13% moved into boarding school and could not continue sack gardening, and 10% moved within the district and did not have the opportunity to continue sack gardening.  The 2013 sack garden workshop educated youth about using sack gardens for vegetable production.  All 21 pupils surveyed remembered the workshop and sack gardening methods, demonstrating both change in knowledge and retention of new knowledge.  When asked about additional sack garden training, pupils’ comments indicated that they valued the experience and were interested in continuing sack gardening.  Based on the reasons why pupils discontinued using sack gardens and their interests, additional training for pupils about investing profits from sales of vegetables into supplies for future sack gardens, proper methods of saving seed and producing transplants, and how boarding school pupils might create or find sack gardening space is recommended.