The Real Impact Nutrition Garden
Data from the Kenyan Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation indicates that
360,000 children will die over the next 5 years as a result of vitamin A
deficiency. Sugar manufacturers are promoting sugar fortified with vitamin A as
a ‘healthy food’ when in fact over-consumption of sugar and carbohydrate is a
major health risk, contributing to obesity and onset of diabetes.
Vitamin A can be sourced naturally from easy-to-grow vegetables such as sweet
potato, pumpkin, butternut squash, carrots and green leafy vegetables, which
have enough vitamin A to provide for the needs of families. There is no vitamin
A in maize. We can teach growers how to sun-dry vegetables and store food
between the rainy seasons to create the ‘food bridges’ needed to empower
communities to help themselves.
Real Impact trains extension workers, NGOs, community leaders and small scale
farmers from Provinces throughout Kenya on both agronomy (how to grow Nutrition
Gardens) and applied nutrition (how to design balanced menus and cook the food
to maintain the vitamins and minerals).
Growing and using
Real Impact, with funding from USAID, through the KHCP programme
(Kenya Horticultural Competitivenes Programme) has developed a series
of 'How to Grow' manuals for the many different crops. A Cook Book
has also been developed by Real Impact (again with USAID funding) to
provide guidelines on how to utilise some of the less familiar
crops, such as beetroot, indigenous vegetables, butternut squash,
into nutritious tasty meals.
A programme from real life
The idea started with a commercial company that
had spare land around its crops. It allowed a club
of workers to use the land; each member committed to
work for a minimum number of hours each week of
their own time. Some people were HIV+; a group for
whom good nutrition is particularly important in
conjunction with ARV treatment.
The company set up a canteen and
employed a cook to provide a hot mid-day meal every
day for the garden club workers. Soon there was
enough produce for each member to take home, either
for the family table, or to be sold for cash.
Each Nutrition Garden is about 1-2 hectares in area and
there are 50 or so members. The aim is to produce enough vegetables
for them and three other members of their immediate families