Health gardens in Mali
In Mali, Action Contre la Faim (ACF) set up the Health & Nutrition Gardens project that uses homegardens as a way of promoting good nutrition at the household level by diversifying supply and increasing dietary diversity. The program empowers women to improve their families’ dietary diversity by combining agriculture, nutrition, food security, education and water and sanitation interventions.
The problem
Considered the breadbasket of the Kayes region in Mali, the district of Kita is characterized by a large number of vulnerable households and high malnutrition rates. Surveys carried out by ACF in 2007 and 2008, attributed malnutrition to reduced dietary diversity caused by lack of fresh foods and difficult access to nutritious food by low income households. Other identified causes were limited access to safe drinking water, poor sanitation and unsuitable breastfeeding and weaning practices.
The Project
Based on these observations, in 2007 ACF launched the Health & Nutrition Garden project, which combines support and training to women in vegetable-gardening, child care and hygiene practices, nutrition as well as cooking demonstrations based on home-grown produce. ACF's approach empowers mothers and care-givers to improve dietary diversity at the household level by:
- Establishing vegetable gardens both for family consumption and for market sale
- Promoting healthy eating habits and adequate child care practices through education and awareness raising
- Using cooking demonstrations and recipes to promote the preparation of balanced meals using homegarden products and locally-available foods
A variety of fruits and vegetables were promoted based on local availability and cultural acceptance: tomatoes, onions, African eggplant, okra, lettuce, cabbage and black-eyed peas. An attempt was made to include Baobab (Adansonia digitata) and Moringa (Moringa oleifera) as live fences to complement vegetable production and enhance the availability of nutrients-rich food. However, due to limited market demand for these foods, plants were poorly maintained leading to low yields and disinterest in crop maintenance.
Impact
Since 2007, the Health Gardens programme supported 1,405 women organized in 36 groups, covering 36 villages and settlements.
An impact assessment study conducted in the study households showed:
- Increased uptake of healthy nutrition practices
- Marked improvement in dietary diversity among surveyed households (both in direct and indirect project beneficiaries) calculated as the increase in number of food groups consumed
- A 40% increase in the proportion of under 5s with access to vitamin A-rich foods
- A 165% increase in vegetable production in targeted households (due to integrated water interventions and better access to water) leading to longer availability of fresh produce for household consumption
- A doubling of income for women taking part in the programme
- The improvement of women's involvement in household decision-making, with 15% of income generated used for family health care
The success of the “Health Garden Approach” has led ACF to geographically scale up the programme to other missions in West Africa as well as in Asia, the Caucasus and Central and South America. A range of institutional donors have been approached and have funded the programme, which can easily be adapted to local contexts depending on locally-available biodiversity.
Lessons learned
- Daily chores often prevent women from adequately caring for their children. Community-based nurseries could be set up to look after the children when mothers are at work (e.g. grandmothers).
- Projects of this nature should mostly target women from more vulnerable households as well as mothers of malnourished children registered in Nutrition Rehabilitation Centres. Alternatively, the programme could create a Health Garden within the nutrition centres
- Awareness-raising, and technology transfer, whether in nutrition education or in farming practices, should be carried out gradually, taking into account the level of education and understanding of target beneficiaries
- Interventions should also consider providing training in food safety, food preparation, drying (using shell or solar dryers) as well as the post-harvest processing of products.
- A rigorous monitoring and evaluation system should be in place to better monitor outputs, outcomes and impacts of the intervention
- Given the importance of safe water and hygiene practices in nutrition causalities, Participatory Hygiene and Sanitation Transformation (PHAST) actions should be carried out
- The Health Gardens approach requires the sustained presence of technical support personnel and nutrition education.
Further opportunities
ACF is working on drafting a manual on how to establish health gardens, including best practices and recommendations for practitioners. It also intends to explore local biodiversity and use of indigenous food in future projects.
Further information
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