FAO community farming projects
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has been working with Caritas, a national NGO, and other partners on farming projects at schools in Juba. Teachers have been trained as facilitators to provide onward training to students on urban agriculture and best agronomic practices. The objective is that the students apply the practices they learned at home, diversify their diets by adding vegetables to their main meals, and sell a portion of the crops at markets so the school can reinvest in agriculture next season.
These photos show the efforts at a school in Gumbo, across the Nile River from Juba. The students have formed an agriculture club where they have set up a school garden.
The students are cultivating staple food crops, like cowpea, as well as set up nurseries to raise carrots, amaranth, eggplant, kale, onion seedlings (among others). They also plan to grow watermelon this season and plant fruit tree seedlings, will learn improved cooking practices, and exchange visits will be organized with neighboring schools practices urban agriculture so that students can share what they have learned amongst each other.
Access to water for agriculture purposes has been a main challenge for schools participating in FAO’s project. The project has therefore provided the school with water harvesting structures (1 per school) to capture rainwater as the rainy season progresses.