Why the high rates of malnutrition?

With the lush beauty of southwestern Uganda’s rolling hills and mist covered lakes, how can 40% of children be malnourished?

Buzaniro families are subsistence farmers. They grow the foods they eat and their crops are also their primary source of income. Population growth has caused land parcels to shrink as they pass through generations and are divided among family members. Land overuse and unsustainable farming practices, especially use of chemical pesticides, have led to soil exhaustion and decreased productivity. Climate change is further exacerbating these challenges.

All these factors create pressure to grow a few crops that are easy to sell. The result? Potatoes and beans are the main staples of the Buzaniro diet. What’s missing is a diverse array of green vegetables, fruit and protein.

Leafy greens fuel the mind and body

Buzaniro families typically eat fruits and leafy green vegetables less than once a week! In May of 202, Go Organic Africa (GOA) introduced the community to nutrient dense fruits and vegetables, recommending plants that were part of the indigenous Ugandan diet and preserving the time-tested knowledge of their elders.

GOA volunteers and the 60 beneficiary families have worked side-by-side to create wooden flatbed gardens and space-saving vertical gardens at each home. They planted over 45,000 vegetable seedlings and 600 small fruit trees, including a variety of guava, orange, lemon and avocado trees.

Restoring soil quality

By teaching the families to farm without using chemical pesticides, the harvests are healthier, and the soil quality will improve over time. The fruit forests reduce top soil runoff as their roots create a network that holds the soil in place despite heavy rains. Cuttings from the gardens, droppings from the trees and rabbit pellets fertilize the soil. All these efforts are restoring soil quality and making it more productive in the future.

Better nutrition, improved health

Being farmers, the families know how to grow vegetables, but prior to the Dream Village, they didn’t know the importance of fruit and green vegetables for their health. One mom says, “We didn’t know how sweet and important the vegetables are. Now we know and we know how to take care of them.” Spinach and kale were the favorites of the new vegetables, with kids saying “they are so delicious!” Nestori, an elder in the village, has food allergies to all the common Ugandan foods, including sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes and matoke (a starch made from green bananas), so he is especially grateful for the new vegetables, saying “They agree with my stomach!” The fruit trees are growing, but not yet producing fruit, as we started with small seedlings. Even so, some families report eating more fruit because now they know the importance of it and are making it a priority to purchase at the market.