Using School Gardens to Support School Feeding Programs at Elementary Schools in Uganda

Optimal nutrition is essential to ensure children receive the greatest benefit from education and live a healthy life. Chronic under-nutrition, due to suboptimal food intake, micronutrient deficiencies, and/or disease (e.g., diarrhea), diminishes cognitive development. Children suffering from hunger exhibit impaired learning and are at risk of falling behind or dropping out of school. School feeding programs (SFP) aim to ensure children receive nutritious food when present at school. School gardening programs (SGP) can support SFP by providing inputs and funds for meals through the sale of SGP products. Iowa State University has had SGP in the Kamuli District of Uganda from 2006-present. Current SGP support SFP at three elementary schools impacting over 2,500 pupils, with 13.4% exhibiting stunting and 1.8 % indicating wasting. Over an 11-year period, the SFP replaced a lunch porridge comprised of ground, white corn (~50 Kcals per serving) with a more nutrient-dense stew of white corn, common beans, vegetables, iodized salt, and vegetable oil (~800 Kcals per serving). The SFP is sustained through three, almost-equal sources: 1) parents provide white corn, 2) products from SGPs are included in meals and/or sold, and 3) funding from Iowa State University’s SGP. School gardens at three schools total over 3 ha and produce fruits (avocado, banana, citrus - orange), vegetables (collard greens, eggplants, orange sweet potatoes, onions, tomatoes) grain amaranth, poultry, and bees. Garden products are used in the SFP and sold to other organizations for additional funds to purchase common beans, iodized salt and vegetable oil. Growing high-value horticultural crops for sale has been an effective method to fund SFP compared to growing a sufficient quantity of crops to include in the daily meal. Long-term sustainability of the SGP is achieved by developing infrastructure through the parents, school management teams, and service-learning projects from bi-national teams of university students and faculty from Iowa State University and Makerere University. The SGP service learning projects include living fences to protect gardens from roaming livestock, cisterns to increase irrigation water availability, compost for improved soil structure, and poultry production for eggs and beekeeping for honey to increase SGP revenue to be used in SFP. Future program directions include increasing the SFP meals served per week to five days at additional schools, the percent of SFP funding obtained through contributions from the SGP and parents, and adding SGP and SFP to other elementary schools.