A number of schools in Maruleng have benefited from a recent project by the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development to help improve food security within the schools by stimulating an interest in vegetable production on the school premises.
Food insecurity remains one of the most problematic social problems in our society. Not only in villages within Maruleng municipal areas but throughout the country and provinces particularly in rural places where joblessness and poverty are high.
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To minimise such a negative effect and its repercussions to social life, the department of Agriculture and Rural development in the Limpopo province at Maruleng municipality mobilised available resources to revive and stimulate interest in gardening namely vegetable production to address food insecurity at Schools, Clinics and Traditional authorities.
These venues were selected as strategic points for the idea as they are often frequented by the public for one reason or another. So learning basic skills of vegetable production and spreading the idea becomes easy and quick.
Again at schools it would be a matter of attracting and catching learners at a young age in addressing food security practices. Not only will such projects prepare learners to be future producers, but also contribute to feeding schemes which schools run. Learners are sometimes fed with fresh vegetables picked from those gardens.
For this year the following schools participated: Balloon Mantjana Primary, Timamogolo Primary, Matshangwane Primary, Calais clinic and Holy Family Care Centre. The main objective of this initiative is to introduce both the learners and the public to basic gardening principles and change negative perceptions among communities which associate gardening with a form of punishment at schools.
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Hence all efforts were made throughout to make the exercise both exciting and an interesting learning experience. In the process taking into account sustainable use of available scarce resources like soil and water.
With seeds and compost received from the department of Agriculture, the following activities were demonstrated and produced good results: Seedbed preparations and sowing, recommended and manageable seedbed size, soil fertility management, proper transplanting patterns, moisture conservation practices, as well as management and monitoring. To ensure that the projects be successful and food insecurity be addressed, monitoring was regularly carried out by responsible role players, namely teachers and extension officials.
This process went through until transplanting was carried out at four weeks from the sowing dates. The idea of stimulating and reviving gardening interest at schools and making such facilities into food production skills learning areas are producing good results.
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“From such a small beginning, we have a situation where several backyard producers visited the department of agriculture to enquire and request training towards successful gardening practices. Such included members of School Governing Bodies in some instances and other community members. Such an interest indeed could be attributed to this humble approach of taking Extension to strategic places for a good purpose,” says Prince Lebepe, an official in the Department of Agriculture
