PROMOTING VEGETABLE GARDENS a Guidance Note For

PROMOTING VEGETABLE GARDENS

A Guidance Note for Country Programmes

The purpose of this note is to outline key issues for programmes to consider when designing and implementing a vegetable garden project.

Date of publication: April 2018

Table of Contents

2…..Introduction

3…… Objectives of a vegetable garden

4…..Types of vegetable gardens

8….. Key considerations for vegetable garden projects

21….. Scaling up and sustaining vegetable gardens

22….. Monitoring and Evaluation of vegetable gardens

23….. Take home messages

25….. Snapshot of Concern vegetable garden promotion

27….. Key Resources

27….. Endnotes

Cover photo: The photo shows farmers working in a shared vegetable garden in a village around Manono, Democratic Republic of Congo. Photo by Cecilia Benda, 2015.

1 PROMOTING VEGETABLE GARDENS Introduction

The term vegetable is somewhat arbitrary, as it may or may not comprise different plant parts such as flowers, fruit, stems, leaves, roots, tubers, bark, seeds, and all other plant matters. For this publication we are going to follow Winch’s (2014) definition whereby vegetables are defined as plants being eaten whole or in part, either cooked or raw, and which do not usually constitute the main part of the meal or diet1.

A vegetable garden or vegetable plot is a piece of land dedicated to the production of vegetable that are grown either seasonally or throughout the year. They are generally of a relatively small size and run by the members of a small-holder farming household, rather than large-scale and commercial production. Vegetables are a class of foods highly valued from a nutritional point of view because they are rich in minerals and vitamins. Vegetable gardens, therefore, have the potential to diversify diets and improve the nutrition of the whole household. They can also generate and diversify income for poor households, as vegetables often fetch good prices in local and regional markets. A range of other benefits have also been associated with vegetable gardens, including contributing to women’s empowerment and even biodiversity.

Vegetable gardens are very common in rural (and even peri-urban and urban) communities around the globe, and Concern has supported them in various forms across many countries. De- spite being common, however, vegetable gardening is actually quite complex. In order to be successful, Concern programmes supporting vegetable gardens must invest the necessary time and resources into good planning, implementation and monitoring and create opportunities to learn and adapt as they go along.

The purpose of this Guidance Note is to outline key issues for Concern programmes to consider when designing and implementing a vegetable garden project. It is an update of an earlier Concern technical brief. For any questions or suggestions, please contact your HQ agriculture advisers: Cecilia Benda or Carl Wahl ([email protected] or [email protected]).

Objectives of a vegetable garden

Vegetables gardens and Concern programmes that support vegetable gardens can have a range of objectives and often more than one. It is important that Concern programmes are clear in the objectives they wish to achieve so they are designed well in consultation with communities. Three common objectives are:

Improve food security and nutrition. Vegetable gardens provide food for household consumption and complement other staple food crops (maize, sorghum, cassava, etc.). Because they are rich in micronutrients (minerals and vitamins), vegetables provide an excellent nutritional boost to meals made with staple crops (which are usually low in micronutrients but high in energy in the form of carbohydrates). This is particularly important for poor households who tend to rely on a few food crops and mostly starchy staple crops because meat, milk and other animal source foods which are also high in micronutrients are often too expensive. This low diversity of the diet can lead to a state of undernutrition, particularly among children and pregnant women who need to eat a wide variety of nutritious foods to support their active growth and development2.

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Vegetable gardens, therefore, can improve the food security and nutrition of the whole household by providing a source micronutrients that are often within easy reach of the person preparing meals. But, it is important to remember that most households don’t usually get all their nutrition from consuming the food they grow. They buy or trade in the market to get the other foods they need (like oil, meat, milk), but vegetable gardens can also contribute to household nutrition in this way - by increasing income, as outlined below. Please see, however, some of the limitations to consider in Box 1.

Increase and diversify household income. Depending on the season, vegetables can often fetch high prices in the local and regional markets and hence can be sold for an income, providing a good source of livelihood to vulnerable households. To achieve this objective, it will be necessary to include a marketing component to the project, and it may be necessary to build skills and awareness not only of the farmers looking to sell, but the potential buyers, including consumers and intermediate merchants. A value chain analysis of different crops with strong consideration of the seasonal aspect of supply and demand will be important. While it is ideal that vegetable gardening households consume some of their produce straight from the field, the importance of this income generating dimension is also critical to improve nutrition and wellbeing, not only to help households buy other foods but to cover other households needs, including things like healthcare, latrine materials, or mosquito nets which will also have a positive effect on nutrition. Overall vegetable garden improves household resilience by increasing and diversifying income, providing ex- tra foods to the household hence buffering shocks and stresses that can occur.

Promoting women’s empowerment. Vegetable gardens on their own are not likely to lead to women’s empowerment, but if designed well and with complementary activities, they can contribute to this in a number of ways. First, women are often in many cultures responsible for the domain of the garden (and men more the domain of the main agricultural field). Many vegetable gardens are actually right near the home where in traditional societies women may spend more time for domestic chores, including preparing meals for the household. Vegetable gardens therefore represent a potential entry point to support women in a livelihood activity where they already have some scope for decision-making on the utilisation of vegetables and the income earned from their sale. It is important, however, to engage with women and men in this aspect to work through any potential tensions or risks that promoting women in this might create. It is also critical that activities do not increase demands on women’s time or workload, or if they do that they women are aware of this and that the benefits will mostly outweigh the increased workload. Please see the Gender section for more details.

3 PROMOTING VEGETABLE GARDENS Box 1. Being realistic about what vegetable gardens can achieve

Despite the huge potential for vegetable gardens to contribute to the nutrition and livelihoods of poor households, the following limitations should be considered:  Consumption of some animal source foods (meat, milk, fish, eggs, insects etc.) is still very important, especially for children and pregnant women. This is because it is difficult to get all the essential micronutrients required (particularly iron and calcium) as well as some fats and protein from only plants.  Vegetables may be not considered part of the main/traditional diet and therefore less important to address food security compared to staple crops. This may cause farmers dropping out from vegetable production during peak period for productive activities when labour is limited (hunger gap period). However through sensitization and awareness campaigns, vegetables are becom- ing popular and people increasingly appreciate their production.  Different vegetables or even consumption of vegetables at all may be a new concept in some communities so a behaviour change element may be required both for the households growing and the potential consumers in the market.  Vegetable gardens are often seasonal so even the most successful ones may only provide vegetables (and income) for part of the year unless the household is able to preserve them (e.g. dry or pickle them) for later consumption (see upcoming Guidance Note on food preservation and processing).

Types of vegetables gardens

There are different types of vegetables garden, group or individual, mixed groups or not, demonstration plots, kitchen garden or vegetables produced in the main field, keyhole, bag garden or other small-size types, etc. The choice of which type to promote largely depends on the local context, the agro-ecology of the target area, beneficiaries preferences and the objective of the activity. Following, some general recommendations and examples from country programmes.

Kitchen gardens are small plots beside the house normally managed by women and used for growing vegetables and fruits for home consumption. These are usually found in tropical and sub-tropical contexts where rainfall falls for the majority of the year such as in DRC, Rwanda and Liberia, or in countries like Malawi and Zambia where a long and abundant rainy season allows the establishment of kitchen gardens also through rainwater harvesting systems. Kitchen gardens are promoted mainly for nutritional purposes to ensure that households have a reliable source of Figure 1: Kitchen garden in Rwanda nutritious food near the house to encourage their consumption (Fig. 1).

4 PROMOTING VEGETABLE GARDENS Keyhole gardens or bag/tower-gardens are often used where land is limited, like in urban settings or within the home compound in rural areas, or in more crowded camp situations. They are considered more efficient use of land and water. Both in Niger and Ethiopia, livelihood-nutrition programmes are piloting bag- gardens and multi-storey sacks in emergencies/ recovery interventions in refugee camps amongst refugees and IDPs who have no access to land for agriculture (Fig. 3). Filling emp- ty bags with soil and manure and planting there vegetable seedlings, is the best use of limited resources and also a way to recycle “grey-

Figure 2 : Keyhole and bag gardens in Rwanda programme water” in the household (water from washing utensils, bath water, etc.). A keyhole garden is a circular raised bed with a centre compost basket that distributes nutrients to the surrounding lay- ered bed. A small pie-slice section of the bed is used for easy access to the centre compost basket forming the keyhole design. Kitchen and garden waste, along with household grey water, are added to the centre basket. The soil bed layers are slightly sloped away from the centre to aid water and "compost tea" distribution outwards. As the materials decompose, soil, composting materials, and amendments are added to the bed in later growing seasons. Concern supports these in Rwanda and Burundi (Fig.2).

Dry season gardening in lowlands is the establishment of vegetable garden plots close to a river or a stream, or in lowland areas that retain soil moisture (Fig. 4). This type of land get flooded during the rainy season but land becomes accessible again as water recedes for dry season production. In lowland areas where streams or rivers are not present, water can be accessed through artisanal or protected dug wells usually found in the surrounding area.

Fig. 4 Vegetable production in lowland fields, nearby a stream in Western Province Zambia (left) and with water from dug wells in Manono, DRC (right).

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Figure: 4 Vegetable production in lowland fields, nearby a stream in Western Province Zambia (left) and with water from dug wells in Manono, DRC (right).

6 PROMOTING VEGETABLE GARDENS Communal fields/ plots are larger pieces of land that are usually divided into smaller plots, managed by individual farmers. This arrangement makes the monitoring of the activities and the provision of technical support from field staff much easier, compared to having each farmer working in their own fields far from each other. Farmers also benefit from working closely each other as they are better able to share information, practical experiences and learn from other farmers’ plots. This has been the experience in DRC, Chad, Niger and Malawi among others (Fig. 5). However, farmers may decide to run the communal garden as a group by establishing a small association. In such case the programme should encourage them to develop a

Figure 5: Communal garden divided into individual plots - Kolkolili constitution for the smooth running of the garden village Niger. plot in order to address the following issues: how do new members join? Can wives and husbands join? Can people lose membership for neglect- ing their plots? Group or individual sales of vegetables? How to sustain the supply of inputs? Bulk purchases of inputs? Links with a group savings and credit scheme? Even if all these should be addressed sooner than later, it’s probably wise not to spend too much time and energy solely on this process as this may demotivate farmers involved, rather this should be carried out meanwhile working in the garden.

Demonstration plots of vegetable production are set up for educational purposes in, for example, schools, health clinics or central village locations in order to raise awareness on the benefits of growing and consuming vegetables and to make people familiar with their cultivation. Vegetables are still considered “new” in many contexts and men, in particular, can be reluctant in being involved in or supporting their production. One such example is the setting up of demonstration garden plots in a refugee camp in Pugnido I (Gambella Region, Western Ethiopia) close to the South Sudan border in the context of a nutrition integrated programme. The plots were located besides some water points in a central location of the camp and were established to demonstrate the cultivation of vegetables and fruit trees and the use of waste water for irrigation (Fig. 6).

School gardens are one form of demonstration plot but can have other purposes too. They are vital for teaching agriculture to the next generation but are often difficult to manage as the gardens are neglected during the holidays and working in the gardens is often associated with pun- ishment. One solution is for school gardens to be run by a gardening club. Membership of the club is voluntary and the children can sell the produce from the gardens. In Kenya, the pupils used the money from their gardens to buy school books in bulk, reducing the cost of education for their parents. The direct benefit to the children ensured that the children watered the gardens during the holidays and weekends, protected school land from encroachment – and also learnt basic business skills. However, poorest children seem to be less likely to attend school for a full day, so ad-hoc arrangements should be found to enable their participation too.

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Figure 6: Demonstration garden plot established in a central location in Pugnido I refugee camp, Western Ethiopia.

Key considerations for vegetable garden projects

Despite being common across the world, vegetable gardens are quite complex operations, and thinking they are an “easy-to- establish” and ‘off the shelf’ intervention would be a big mistake. Vegetable gardens take many forms as they must be adapted to different agro-ecological and cli- matic systems in each location as well as the context of individual households. This section out- lines the key factors that can determine the success or the failure of a programme’s vegetable garden promotion activities and that need to be considered right from start during the planning and design phase with communities and other stakeholders.

Range of technical expertise required

Concern increasingly supports integrated programmes and based on the objectives set, expertise may be required to support the nutrition, health, agricultural, economic and gender equality aspects of growing vegetables. This wide range of expertise are not always found together in country programmes, or different technical experts may tend to work independently. At a minimum, field officers should be equipped with agricultural technical knowledge and practical skills, in particular around planning and setting up a nursery, transplanting techniques, watering and how to control pests and diseases, which is usually a big constraint for first time producers. Nutritionists should be part of the process too, to include vegetables of high nutritional value, to run sensitization sessions on the role of vegetables for nutrition for under-five children and pregnant and lac- tating women, or to advice on cooking demonstrations to familiarise with less known vegetables and ensure they can become part of the daily diet.

Running vegetables gardens as a business and for a profit might not be embedded in small-scale farmers’ mind-set, nonetheless this is a key aspect that greatly encourage farmers to keep up with the activity. Building farmers’ capacities on marketing, pricing, bulking and collective sale, purchasing of inputs, etc. is therefore necessary but it implies having staff with this set of skills and able to transfer them to farmers. This is probably the aspect most overlooked or at best con-

8 PROMOTING VEGETABLE GARDENS sidered less of a priority across country programmes. Gender equality as cross cutting issue should be also addressed through tailored-approaches to ensure women not only participate but are enabled to benefit from increased food production and income opportunities to improve theirs and their children’s nutrition and livelihood.

Seasonality and deciding when to garden

Rain, temperature, hours of sunlight per day, pest and disease cycles – these factors all determine if and how vegetables will grow, and they are also highly seasonal in many contexts. The timing of workloads for the cultivation of staple crops and management of livestock can also be highly seasonal. This means that at certain times of the year, households have very little time or free hands to do more than plough their fields, weed or harvest their sorghum or maize, or herd their goats or cattle.

The decision of when programme participants already do and could or would like to garden is a critical one. It should take into consideration the seasonality of all of the above and Concern’s workplan to support the gardens should be finely tuned to address the seasons as well. Obtaining or developing a seasonal calendar (Annex 1) for the area is an essential first step. Discuss and agree with technical staff and programme participants regarding the most appropriate time of the year to grow vegetables.

This is usually the dry season when pests incidence is lower and when water in lowland fields have receded, but there can be cases in which people are used to grow vegetables during the rainy season, perhaps when vegetables fetch higher prices. Since prices of agricultural commodi- ties fluctuate throughout the year, market considerations should always be included when deciding the period for growing and selling vegetables, especially for perishable products and where opportunities for storage are limited. Once the season and time periods are agreed, it’s important to plan activities well in advance. Seedlings raised in the nursery take roughly one month to be ready for transplanting in the main plot, so if for example vegetables production start in May the nursery should be established around March/April the latest.

Seasonal gardens are often common in areas with unimodal rainfall, such as Malawi and Zambia, where garden sites in wetlands flood during the dry seasons, when water recedes; further, in areas of high altitude, or areas with more than two hours variation in day length, some crops may grow better at certain times of the year. For example, in Zambia cabbages and carrots grow better in the cool, dry season (May - August), and tomatoes in the hot, dry season (August - Octo- ber).

Location of the vegetable gardens: access to land, water and markets

Choosing the location of the vegetable gardens should depend on three essential factors: 1) secure access to land (with good soil), 2) secure access to a water source if they will run during the dry season (unless a large-scale water distribution system is in place) and 3) for access to markets. These need to be guaranteed for the duration of the project and, ideally, beyond, so the sustainability of the gardens needs to be considered from the outset even if arrangements for land and water may shift over time.

9 PROMOTING VEGETABLE GARDENS Access to land, particularly land tenure arrangements, for the gardening space is an important thing to think through and get right. If the project is focusing on individual ‘kitchen gardens’, e.g. near people’s homes, land access is generally more straightforward. For dry season gardening, however, water constraints often mean that households may seek a dry-season field (e.g. by a river bed or shallow well) or must come together to engage in more collective gardening on a plot that has reliable access to water. The land for these dry-season gardens – whether individual plots or in a communal field - is normally requested from community leaders and may be provided for free or rented from private land owners. Group members may raise money to pay the rent collectively or Concern may contribute the fee to support farmers. Farmers should stipulate an agreement, better if formal/written or alternatively informal/oral (provided witnesses are present) that ensures a minimum period for utilising the land, at least the entire growing season. Some projects may opt for communal gardens even during the rainy season and access a communal plot in the same way.

Soil quality for growing vegetables should be relatively high. Light soils are preferred - loamy/sandy soils rather than clay soils - with adequate amount of soil organic matter (SOM) with neutral pH (6-8). Soil analysis (pH, SOM, N, P, K and texture) would be recommended especially if the target area is new. Results could trigger recommended practices like manure/compost application in case soils are found poor in SOM, or application of lime in fields where pH is high. Often farmers do not have much choice in choosing where to grow vegetables, and therefore ways to ameliorate or improve soil fertility are even more important. In DRC and Zambia, where the programmes was running in a floodplain area, lowlands were chosen for vegetables production during the dry season when flooding had receded, thus taking advantage of relatively high levels of soil fertility and the residual moisture in the soil.

Water sources for irrigation are one of the first things to identify if you are planning to support gardening during the dry season. Access to water may, in fact, need to be one of the criteria for selecting communities in a target area (see Beneficiaries Selection section below). The mapping of water sources should be done together with community members and target project participants. Water sources can be rivers, streams, ponds, shallow/dug well (Fig. 7), borehole, rainwater harvesting systems like a tank or a basin (Fig. 8), basins filled with water through small ca- nals channelling waste water from centrally located water points (Fig. 9). The quantity each provides and its reliability throughout the season should be assessed. From these sources, water needs to be channelled to reach the field or garden plot through a distribution system that often involves pipes and pumping water from the water source. Treadle, solar or motor pumps are often used to pump water from rivers, ponds, or dug wells directly into nearby gardens. Surface and gravity irrigation can then be used to distribute water throughout the field, utilising even a small slope.

However, these distribution systems are often not very efficient since water is not directed only to the plant but to the whole field, and hence is partly wasted. Where water is scarce, it can be stored in raised tanks and then distributed to the crop through a drip irrigation system, which di- rects water precisely nearby the root system of the crop. It also does so gradually to avoid exces- sive lose via evaporation. Drip irrigation is considered the most efficient distribution system for irrigation and is best used in small-scale production. After having identified potential water sources and efficient distribution systems, the livelihood team should verify their reliability, in other words that water is available to satisfy crop requirements during the vegetable growth period, which is usually four to six months.

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Figure 7 Artisanal shallow wells used for irrigating vegetables in Manono (DRC)

Figure 9 Demonstration on the use of waste water for irrigation coming from a water points in Pugnido refugee camp (Western Ethiopia)

Figure 8 Water harvesting basin in Somaliland

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In the Zambia Western Province livelihood programme, which is located in a floodplain, vegetable gardens were established along streams crossing the villages. Similarly, in DRC the programme established dry season gardens in lowland areas once the wet season floods receded and used artisanal shallow wells for irrigation throughout the dry season (Fig. 7). In dryland countries like Chad and Niger, dry season gardening is only possible where shallow wells are present, usually next to the seasonal rivers that slowly dry up following the main crop harvest (Fig. 10).

Figure 10 : Surface irrigation through water pumping from protected shallow well_ Kolkolili village, Niger

Access to markets is also important for selling excess produce. Ideally, vegetable gardens should be also as close as possible to main roads or trading centres where traders and transporters can easily come and buy the produce thus minimising transport.

Access and visibility for communal garden plots are a key consideration. Communal plots should be located in a central position so that all farmers can easily access it, very long distances may discourage people from getting involved altogether. Having a central plot would also increase visibility and allow other community members to stop by, appreciate farmers’ work and get to know new crops and new farming techniques, among others. This is extremely beneficial for promoting vegetables production beyond the group of beneficiaries and in the larger community. Field days with farmers can be organised in such central field as public awareness events.

Programme participant selection

In line with its mission, Concern’s targeting of programme participants should ensure the greatest impact on the poorest and most vulnerable. Selection of participants in vegetable garden support activities should therefore include locally validated socio-economic and vulnerability criteria such as a household’s asset base and income; dependency ratios; presence of a chronically ill or disabled household members; women or child-headed households, among others. As with other livelihoods programmes, Concern should engage communities in local wealth and vulnerability rank- ing processes to identify the most vulnerable, with mechanisms for validation and refinement before the list of participants is finalised.

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Women should represent a substantial rate of participants because of the wide range of benefits they could get from vegetable production. In terms of membership of gardening groups, Concern experience has been that women-only groups are more effective than mixed groups, and groups where both the husband and wife are members rarely work, however research on farmers groups in Kenya found that male farmers who learned together with female farmers became less gender rigid on their own farms, so ultimately mixed-gender groups may be beneficial to promote women empowerment.

At the same time, programme participants need to have a personal interest in gardening. Thus selecting final participants will involve a simultaneous process of identifying the most vulnerable and within those, the ones who are most motivated to engage. In order to promote participation of the most vulnerable, programmes should offer a “basket” of interventions to choose from – not just gardens, so that there is a certain level of self-selection of garden participants. This could ensure commitment and follow up on activities along with sustainability. Barriers that prevent some beneficiaries from joining gardening projects should be also identified, such as gender or ethnici- ty, but also one of the biggest – access to water (see above). Alternative options for those who do want to engage in gardens but may not have the physical capacity should be found. For example, households with a disabled, chronically ill and elderly member could be allowed to send an- other better-able member of the same household. Other adaptations such as arranging child care at demonstration plots.

There is some evidence that that mixed ability/wealth groups may work better and achieve higher results in vegetable gardening than groups composed solely of poorest households. In Concern’s Somaliland programme, for example, better-off and more experienced farmers represented a small proportion of selected farmers. The group shared experiences and practices and learnt from each other in meaningful ways. Including richer and local innovator farmers in the gardening groups can improve the stability of the group, encourage innovations and reduce stigma – gardens are not just for the poor! In Somaliland, better off farmers were in fact eager for more farmers to gain skills and water access so they could produce fruit in volumes large enough to attract middle-traders to come and buy them. Of course, this should be carefully monitored to ensure better-off farmers represent a small percentage and that the majority of benefits accrue to the extremely poor households.

Once selected, training and sensitization activities should start immediately to provide initial information regarding the objectives, the calendar of activities, expected commitment in terms of time and workload and expected benefits, so farmers are well ‘on board’ before they start engaging with the actual field production.

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Provision of garden inputs

For first time vegetables producers and vulnerable households it is usually recommend to provide a basic package of inputs and tools, namely seeds, watering cans and hoes/rakes. Each programme may adjust the package according to local contexts and specific needs. Overall, for all inputs and tools quality is critical and programme should always strive to supply the highest quality possible.

Seeds. Vegetables seeds procured must be of high quality standards, usually they are cer- tified hybrid seeds in branded sachets from national or regional agro-dealers. These seeds ensure high germination rates and overall good performance of the crop, however farmers need to purchase seeds every year because this type of seeds cannot be recycled. However, breeding companies have released open pollinated varieties (OPV) that can be recycled. Programme that are particularly concerned about the capacity of farmers to buy the seeds every year, should try to procure OPV types of vegetables while training farmers on seeds production. A practical manual for vegetables seeds production can be found here. On the contrary, if seeds are supplied locally, especially for certain types of vegetables like pumpkins and okra, a germination test prior distribution is recommended to check seeds viability.

Using local markets to supply inputs. Concern encourages the engagement of local markets in the delivery of inputs and avoiding direct distribution. Organising input fairs with local suppliers or distributing commodity vouchers to farmers are ways to stimulate the local economies and establish links between suppliers and new potential customers. Several countries, including DRC and Malawi do not distribute directly to beneficiaries anymore but have shifted towards engaging more local private actors (see the Marketing section for more in detail).

Timing of inputs is absolutely critical. Project teams need to consider how absolutely critical and time-sensitive delivery of garden inputs are – e.g. seeds and hoes before the rain and weeds begin. If procuring the inputs themselves before distribution, then they must start the process with sufficient lead time to ensure they are in the farmers’ hands when the technical staff say they are needed, especially if inputs come from abroad. For example, if nurseries are to be established in April, beneficiaries should get seeds and tools in March the latest, and procurement should start as early as possible before that. If promoting input fairs or using commodity vouchers, then a whole market system analysis is required and ongoing planning with the vendors to be sure this runs smoothly and according to the seasonal calendar.

Extension and technical support

Vegetable gardening can be an entirely new agricultural activity for farmers, existing government agriculture extension agents, as well as Concern and partner staff, and it is very important that the project does not underestimate the time and effort that will be required to build these new skills or transfer new knowledge to farmers. It is essential to plan who in the project team will provide the ongoing technical support and coaching for vegetable gardens at each level, from the higher project management level down to the field agents advising the gardeners themselves.

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There are a number of approaches that can be utilized to build vegetable gardening. Participatory approaches in which farmers can interact and share their experience and knowledge with field staff and other farmers should be favoured. The two most commonly used in Concern agriculture programmes - Lead Farmers and Farmer Field Schools - are outlined below, but they will likely require some local adaptation. There are a number of factors to consider when designing the type of technical support or extension method such as the scale of the project in terms of population size, population density and the geographic spread of the targeted gardeners; the ‘newness’ of the gardening practices the project will introduce; if it is integrated with other sectors and with multiple objectives; cultural values that may encourage or hinder shared work or working and/or learning in groups vs individual work; what technical support to gardening already exists – if any - within the government agriculture extension service.

The population size and spread needs to be considered when determining how many gardening households can be supported by one field agent, and in turn, the number of Concern staff required to support those field agents. If individual farmers plots are established will definitely take more time and resources monitoring them compared to communal plots where farmers work together. As a general rule, we recommend one field agent supporting approximately 10-15 individual farmers’ plots or between 5-10 communal plots, also depending on the distance between plots. In this regard, it is important to avoid being overly ambitious and to prioritise quality over quantity. If vegetables production is new among beneficiaries, farmers’ plots should be visited at least once a week or twice per month to monitor fields and crops performance, check pest and diseases outbreaks and provide technical advices. Programme staff should not limit their contact time with farmers to the training sessions but keep coaching and provide technical backstopping beyond training sessions. The relative complexity and ‘newness’ of the techniques to be introduced is a big factor. For example, a project introducing a higher yielding variety of maize in Zambia, where maize is the staple food and is grown by over 90 percent of the rural population, would likely not require much training other than sensitization at the community level. However, training on gardening that involves crop rotation, nutrient management, composting, etc. will require a much more hands-on approach with opportunities for demonstration, adaptation and practice. A general rule of thumb for agricultural extensions is that a cohort of beneficiaries should receive training and technical support for at least two years, as often some practices take more than one year for any tangible results to occur, such as seed saving, fruit trees, bio-char application. Particular emphasis should be given to tricky aspects of vegetables production such as nursery establishment, transplanting and pest and diseases control and other topics less known to farmers.

Linking with government agriculture extension and other relevant government staff In the large majority of countries where Concern works, the public provision of extension services is almost non-existing, and where present it usually focuses on large-scale crop production rather than supporting smallholders. Even if Ministry of Agriculture sub-offices can be found at regional or district level, often they are too poorly resourced (human resources, skills, transport, etc.) to provide adequate support to households and fields that are remotely located. However, linking up and establish partnerships with government bodies and services is worthwhile for enhancing government capacities on one side and promote the sustainability of the intervention after Concern exits on the other.

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This can be achieved through for instance involving public extension agents in training and capacity building activities, either as recipients or as co-facilitators, in routine technical support visit to farmers, or in organising demonstration events in the communities, among others.

As our work in vegetable gardening is relevant to so many facets of rural life and often takes place within public spaces such as schools and health centres, it is important to include front-line civil servants at all stages. Inclusion of other government staff should be at the appropriate levels; for example, high school teachers and headmasters may be willing to host demonstration plots at their schools that can be utilized for both feeding the children and as a learning centre. For integrated nutrition/ health / agriculture programmes, it may be important to involve health staff at fa- cility and community level in all program inception activities so they are better enabled to participate in critical monitoring and evaluation activities.

Developing the garden curriculum and Training of Trainers (TOTs). As outlined above, some garden activities will be highly seasonal and others, such as kitchen gardens in highly rainy areas, might be continuous. Training programmes should be tailored to this seasonal calendar to ensure the most appropriate techniques and crops are being promoted at the right time and in the right order. This will likely include quite a bit of thinking and revising of the curriculum, but generally speaking, training in gardening should include the following topics:

 Garden planning for nutrition outcomes;  Garden arrangements for optimum productivity, plant protection and crop associations;  Garden site selection and preparation;  Nursery preparation and planting;  Water management;  Soil nutrient management (including fertilizers, manure management, green manures, manure tea, and composting);  Soil water management (Irrigation and moisture conservation);  Plant protection, including Integrated Pest Management (IPM), weed management, plant management (e.g., pruning tomatoes, peppers, etc.);  Harvesting;  Post-harvest handling and storage (including locally appropriate means of preservation such as solar drying);

Training of trainers (ToTs) is essential to ensure that project staff are fully exposed to all relevant topics, with ample opportunities to get hands on experience. The ToTs should be carried out at least twice in a year, particularly in contexts with different growing seasons. This allows the training to focus on activities that are more appropriate to the current season, rather than trying to cram all activities for the year into a single training session. It is critical that some method of hands-on demonstration be included in all the ToTs and when the field agents are working with target beneficiaries themselves. You cannot expect people to train on or adopt a practice if they haven’t at least seen it being physically carried out. Therefore, it is crucial for both trainers and trainees to have hands-on practice in all topics in order to better be able to facilitate farmer trainings. This plot can be either a central demonstration plot, the FFS plot or the communal field where farmers collectively grow vegetables.

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It is not uncommon to come across a staff member or farmer with a particular skillset, such as In- tegrated Pest Management. In that case, it is very good idea to work with that staff member to lead the training of her or his peers in that specific topic. This will serve to empower the staff member, and typically their experiences are more appropriate to the local contexts. Working with these staff members to document best practices from the field, and if the opportunity presents itself, to write or co-author blogs, technical briefs, or articles around their expertise can also be highly beneficial.

Marketing considerations

Programme staff and farmers need to consider how markets function when promoting vegetable production. Farmers need to be able to access seed and other inputs to sustain production post project (and potentially even during the project, see above). Understanding the market, or improving how the market functions can also enable farmers to earn a valuable cash income. This section examines these considerations in more detail. In terms of farming inputs for vegetable production, programme staff need to consider how farmers will access seed and other inputs post project. A good way to approach this is to try and stimulate the market for vegetable seed by working with local agro dealers, or other traders who could provide vegetable seeds on our behalf (see Provision of garden inputs section above for more details).

Horticultural production can provide a valuable cash income for households. Programme staff and farmers need to understand more about the market. Understanding the market means knowing what consumers want to buy in terms of variety, quality and seasonality. Often it is clear what varieties and quality is in demand, but there may be possibilities for introducing new varieties or improving quality. Seasonality is directly linked to price. As most farmers are reliant on seasonal rains most horticultural production follows a pattern with prices generally rising and falling with factors of supply and demand. Supporting farmers maximise opportunities here is through supporting production at times when prices are high due to insufficient supply. This means producing earlier and later in the season. This can be through supporting access to irrigation equipment but also through adapting farming practises.

Producing for sale also involves considering where the market is, and what channels exist to meet that market. Programme staff and farmers need to understand where the markets are, and what form they take. This also involves understanding what transport links exist and how much they cost. It involves looking how often highly perishable goods can be packed and transported. The quality of the roads is also critical. Transportation costs are likely to be one of the most important constraints facing farmers in access markets. One of the ways of reducing transportation costs is to look at supporting farmers to aggregate produce through farmers groups or forming marketing associations.

Understanding more about the market is through undertaking a market assessment or value chain analysis. This process should start with the assessing the market demand and working from there to understand how to grow the market or value chain as a whole. This will involve looking at all the actors involved in bringing a product to the market. This will include input suppliers, producers, transporters, wholesalers and so on. Programme staff need to consider interventions beyond the farmer, as often some of the constraints are not only at the level of production.

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Two different approaches to vegetable garden extension services

Lead Farmers (also known as Pilot Farmers, Master Farmers, Model Farmers, etc.) The Lead Farmer (LF) approach utilizes community-based farmers who are selected by the community in which they are located. These farmers typically receive initial and successive trainings focussed on a limited number of specific production methodologies. The intention of these trainings is to upskill the Lead Farmers so they can transfer that technology to a group of 10 to 20 “follower” farmers. Typically, the lead farmer receives a standard inputs pack (seeds, tools, fertilizers, etc.) in order to demonstrate the technology or practices they have learned on their own farm. He or she then holds regular guided visits, and in some cases, work days on the farm in order to train follower farmers in the technology. In some cases, lead farmers are also tasked with monitoring their follower farmers. This is typically the approach used to train large numbers of farmers across large rural landscapes when there is a proven, formulaic agriculture methodology and the project management has high levels of agriculture technical knowledge. For example, the Zambia Conservation Agriculture (CA) Phase I project used lead farmers to promote a specific set of CA techniques.

There are several challenges with the Lead Farmer approach, however, particularly in relation to garden promotion that need to be addressed at design stage. First, community selection of the lead farmers is often biased towards men, even if the majority of farmers to be supported are women. Secondly, the lead farmers selected by the community may be good farmers, but they are not necessarily good at training other farmers; they might lack interpersonal, facilitation or coaching skills. Third, lead farmers, especially if they are acting on a voluntary basis, are still subject to the usual livelihood, social and familial obligations as the rest of their community. For example, if they have a sick family member, they cannot be expected to complete their role as a lead farmer. Fourth, follower farmers are often not selected by the lead farmer, and they may in some cultures be unwilling to visit or work on the lead farmer’s field, as doing work in exchange for knowledge (as opposed to food or income) may be seen as a waste of time. Lastly, there is very little room for adaptation within the lead farmer model - quite often the approach is highly formulaic and Lead Farmers and follower farmers are often not encouraged to step outside of this system.

It is therefore recommended that a project using the Lead Farmer approach to promote vegetable gardens should:  Really think through the job description and activities expected of the lead farmers, and make sure that those expectations are clearly delineated prior to the project inception.  Lead Farmers should not be expected to perform monitoring tasks on their follower farmers, as this cre- ates both a significant workload and requires increased amounts of training. However, Lead Farmers should be encouraged (but not required) to join staff conducting monitoring visits.  If the project targets women, as garden project almost always do, being a woman should be a key selection criteria for Lead Farmers. In cases where both males and females are the target audience, request that the community pairs a female with a male Lead Farmer as a helper who can work more closely with female farmers.

Farmer Field Schools Farmer Field Schools (FFS), also called “schools without walls”, are groups of farmers working together in a communal field to learn and experiment on specific agricultural topics under the guidance of a group facilitator. FFS promotes co-learning and exchanging of experiences and knowledge among farmers and is based on adult learning and participatory approaches. FFS can be well adapted to vegetable production by establishing a season-long cycle of learning. Farmers could select specific topics like pest and disease control or nursery management, or instead focus on the whole growth cycle of a cycle vegetable such as tomato through field monitoring forms that help farmers assess different management options. Farmers learn through the field observation, trials, group discussions, and results. Normally, FFSs last one growth cycle or season but often farmer groups decide to keep the group alive and continue working together or set up an association for marketing purposes. Unlike the Lead Farmer approach, which is normally used to transfer standardised practices by trained farmers, FFS let farmers test and try different management options and in this way fosters experimentation and innova- tion and can boost a farmer’s confidence in her/his own capacity to address field management issues. FFS is a great participatory approach, but it requires substantial resources in terms of time, facilitation skills and monitoring. It is therefore recommended that a project using a Farmer Field School approach to vegetable gardening should:  Plan to work with a small number of FFS groups that can be easily followed up and closely monitored  Opt for Concern field staff or other properly trained facilitators lead the FFS. If the project prefers to have community-based Lead Farmers facilitate the FFSs, be sure they have the capacity and time to facilitate and ensure they are trained well on the FFS approach.  The different research trials being carried out are defined and the processes and results documented.

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Supporting farmers to engage in a value chain needs to consider the farmers ability to produce for that market. This ability is a factor the land, labour, knowledge and technology available to the farmer. When farmers engage in value chains, particularly buyers such as supermarkets it is important the programme staff work with farmers to understand the need to meet the required quan- tities and qualities consistently. This requires a long term perspective to build capacity and trust.

Developing access to markets needs to take a gender perspective. The burden of agricultural labour is often disproportionately born by women, who also have domestic responsibilities taking up their time and energy. This impacts on their ability to produce surpluses for sale. Women might face constraints to access important services such as credit. Sometimes women are physically unable to access markets as they are not able to travel freely due to social or cultural reasons or insecurity.

Gender in vegetable production

Women are estimated to make up 40 percent of the agricultural workforce in Africa on average with significant differences across countries3, and likely even a greater proportion when it comes to vegetable production. In many cultures men and women have specific roles in agriculture. In many parts of Africa vegetable production is traditionally a women’s role (women produce the sauce for the meal and men produce the carbohydrate staple) and each wife may have her own plot for growing vegetables. In many societies, this means that women have a degree of control over how those vegetables coming from the garden are used and what to do with any small income from the sale of surplus vegetables. Note, however, that if gardening becomes more of a commercial activity with greater income potential, men may try to take greater control.

For these reasons, and with the right inputs and support, vegetable gardens can be an excellent entry point to promote women’s empowerment by building their knowledge, livelihoods skills, and disposable income. Women have also shown they are more likely to invest in their children’s nutrition and wellbeing than men, and women’s empowerment has been linked to improved child malnutrition. This means that empowering women via vegetable gardens can have a ‘win-win’ effect for the nutrition and wellbeing of the women as well as their children.

To ensure that women can reap the full range of benefits from vegetables production, including greater gender equality, however, the programme should include other elements. The objective should be to actively encourage women maintaining or increasing decision-making power over the vegetable garden production process (e.g. on inputs or land use), as well as decisions on what to do with the produce and income from sales. This should be assured to minimise that risk that as vegetable gardening becomes more productive that men will begin to take over. It is recommended that these gender equality activities should engage women as well as men and boys in some capacity and include sensitization activities, active dialogue and a complementary life skills (as well as marketing skills) programme to help women better negotiate within and outside of their households.

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In Mozambique Concern and Promundo-US worked on the “Engaging Men in Gender Transfor- mation to Improve Mother-Child Nutrition” to strengthen nutrition outcomes through improved gender equality. Dialogue clubs of men and women were established during which people discussed through facilitated conversations around different topics including Sharing Experiences of Being a Man and Being a Woman; Examining Power; Household Decision-Making Maternal, Infant and Young Child Nutrition; What is Violence; Ending Violence Together and Challenging Early Mar- riage. This created a positive environment that facilitated increased levels of joint decision making within households and increased levels of shared domestic work among participants.

Figure: 11 Posters developed for the Engaging Men project in Mozambique for gender equality and behaviour Likewise, the BRACED resilience programme in Chad comprised a life skills curriculum for men and women that focused on sharing tasks and responsibilities and decision making and control over the use of productive assets and income, including from agriculture activities like vegetable production. Kitchen gardens at household level are an ideal opportunity to illustrate the importance of husband and wife working together and sharing tasks, such as decision making over which crops are planted, who takes care of the garden, what is the produce used for, who owns the money from selling surplus produce and who decides on what is this money spend on. Projects should also be careful not to increase women’s workload. Watering can be a major burden for women so technology like drip irrigation and keyhole gardens that can reduce women workload should be encouraged. Encouraging women in roles of lead farmers or community animal health workers is also empowering as it promotes women engagement and learning in agricultural interventions. Promoting Behaviour Change

It is important to consider what motivates people to change behaviours in many aspects of vegetable gardens. First, vegetable gardening itself can be new and it may be important to understand what barriers and incentives to practicing vegetable cultivation may exist and work around or with them. Second, factors influencing other child caring and feeding practices that impact maternal and child nutrition, including how people use the produce of their gardens, are critical to understand if your programme intends to improve nutrition.

In Zambia Concern’s RAIN programme supported a women’s life skills component alongside vegetable garden activities. The aim was to promote behaviour change focusing on the importance of sharing tasks within the household and working together for nutrition outcome as well as improving skills among the women vegetable garden participants in public speaking, negotiation and decision-making5.

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Figure: 12 Two posters from RAIN programme in Zambia on behaviour change for gender equality

Delivering a behaviour change communication component of the project is important to ensure that both women and men in the household are aware of and have the skills and decision making power to implement essential nutrition, health and hygiene practices. Appropriate posters, and other visual or even audio materials may already exist in the country you are working in (see next section) that could be used to promote e.g. the importance of a diverse diet and various food groups, what to feed infants and children of different ages; how to preserve and prepare and store produce from the garden in local recipes, particularly designed for children, and the importance of consuming not only selling vegetables grown. There may also be specific food taboos or cultural or religious practices that limit food intake. Mothers-in-law and husbands are often influential in household food and feeding decisions, so they need to be included in behaviour change activities as well.

Scaling up and sustaining vegetable gardens: working with governments

As outlined above, a well-designed vegetable garden can contribute to nutritional outcomes at a household or community level, and this impact can be amplified if the project also engages strate- gically at meso-level (e.g. District) and macro-level (e.g. National) with government bodies and other key decision makers. Concern should always seek to support the government to scale-up effective interventions, such as vegetable gardens if they are indeed successful. This means we should be engaging with government counterparts from the start of the project and design the project’s M & E component well to be able to show if/ how gardens can contribute to nutritional and other objectives.

An important first step is to identify and review any government strategies or policies that relate to the promotion of small scale vegetable production. These may exist in the department of agriculture, nutrition or even health or women’s affairs, for example. One challenge with vegetable gardens for nutrition purposes is that the responsibility is not always clearly defined between agricul- turalists and nutritionists or between ministries and therefore is often implemented poorly or not at all.

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Concern teams should design vegetable garden programmes around any relevant national strategies or guidelines that relate to vegetable gardens. Where these are good, Concern should simply support implementation of the government garden package, including training government extensions agents/ volunteers; using existing agriculture extension materials; and using local terminolo- gy (e.g. homestead garden, kitchen garden, backyard garden etc.).

Where relevant government strategies or guides for vegetable gardens don’t exist (and be really sure they don’t – you often need to keep digging and talking to people to find them) or if gaps exist Concern should work with the government to address these gaps. It is also important to find out what other NGOs – including local NGOs - are doing in this area as it is important not to rein- vent the wheel.

It is also useful to see if the government has committed to nutritional goals and/or if a country has signed up to international initiatives such as the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement. There may be considerable interest to align, implement and resource efforts to promote effective vegetable gardens if they can be shown to contribute to improving child and maternal nutrition. Con- cern in Zambia has engaged heavily in the SUN movement and shared much of the learning from the RAIN project with the wider nutrition community.

Promotion of vegetable gardens is, in fact, a practical opportunity to show how different sectors and government departments can work together to jointly design, resource, implement, and su- pervise projects to achieve nutritional and agricultural outcomes. Thus, Concern garden programmes should work transparently and in partnership with all the relevant ministries and District- level departments, coordinating plans and budgets, sharing progress and promoting visits with government representatives from all levels. This may take some influencing to gradually convince different stakeholders that vegetable promotion can help them achieve their respective objectives. Monitoring and Evaluation of vegetable gardens

In order to be able to measure vegetables production outputs (# households reached, inputs distributed, crops production levels, amount of produce sold in the market, incomes from vegetables sale, etc.) and outcomes towards food and nutrition security, a robust monitoring and evaluation system should be in place and the required resources (time and staff mainly) allocated. Concern’s Programme Quality (PQ) Guide provides standard indicators to measure progresses both at outcome and output level that are suitable for interventions that focus on vegetable production for food nutrition and livelihood security. See below links to the specific indicators:

Outcome indicators: hunger gap; household dietary diversification; food consumption score; household food insecurity access scale; production diversity.

Output indicators: Kitchen Gardens (also found at the same link in the PQ Guide)  Percentage of households with a (functional) kitchen garden  Percentage of households that use the production from own garden for: - Consumption - Preservation - Seeds

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Programmes engaged in vegetable production should use these indicators as much as possible, while further indicators could be developed in future to monitor outputs such as crops performance and production levels, utilisation of produces, income from the sale of vegetables, etc. Even if many country programmes have such monitoring tools in place already, we will work with the M&E team to develop standardised forms in the DDG system to be used across different contexts.

In the meantime, because collecting data can be overwhelming for field officers, we would recommend to focus on less data that are collected consistently during monitoring visits or technical support visits and training sessions. Useful data to collect regularly is:  Overall crop performance  Pest and diseases issues  Productions levels  Utilisation of the produce (consumption/sale/exchange)  Incomes from the sale.

The data collected should be disaggregated by crop type and by gender of participant to better capture women participation and benefits accrued.

Take home messages

 Concern promotes vegetable production in many country programmes and this rep- resents a great opportunity to achieve different objectives such as improving food and nutrition security, increasing income at HH level and even promoting women empowerment. However, establishing successful vegetable garden is complex and need to consider several aspects.  There are different types of vegetable garden: individual kitchen gardens mainly run for auto-consumption; bag and sack gardens most adapted for urban contexts or where access to land and water is limited; communal and group gardens; dry season gardens mostly run in lowland areas or besides streams. The choice of the type of garden will depend on the objective of the intervention as well as the specific local context.  Running vegetable gardens for different objectives in integrated programmes requires a variety of technical skills, including technical agriculture, marketing, nutrition and gender, which should all be included in the programme skills set.  Timely access to water, land and inputs are critical and the programme should plan and design them well in advance by engaging with communities and participants, carrying out community mapping and market analysis. If gardens are run during the dry season water should be available throughout through efficient and reliable distribution systems. Access to good quality land need to be guaranteed and farming inputs should be provided as much as possible through local suppliers to encourage the market. Alongside, the location of the garden is critical for access and visibility by participant farmers and the whole community.

23 PROMOTING VEGETABLE GARDENS  Technical support and extension services are fundamental, especially to first time producers. Frequent visits to farmers and practical timely training and demonstrations are required, while participatory methodologies like Farmer Field School and farmer to farmer approaches that build on farmers’ experiences should be encouraged.  Marketing considerations that support local markets need to be included since the planning phase. For instance inputs (seeds and tools) should not be directly distributed by Concern but by local agro dealers as much as possible by setting up voucher systems or inputs fairs. This would create relationships between the demand and the supply, or between traders and customers, which is critical for the sustainability of the activity in the target area. Linking farmers to local brokers and traders for the sale of their produce is also essential to keep farmers motivated and interested in the production.  Gender equality and behaviour change considerations need to be included since the planning stage in order for women and children to fully benefit from vegetable production. Life skill programmes and other sensitization activities with men and women can change gender norms, encourage a fairer share of tasks and responsibilities within the household and increase women’s decision making and control over productive assets and income.  Concern’s emphasis on nutrition means that the intervention should focus on the most nutritious vegetable types and their consumption encouraged mainly among pregnant and lac- tating women and children for a diversified diet. Gender equality and behaviour change are fundamental to achieve nutrition outcomes.  A robust M&E system is necessary to measure progresses at both outcome level on food and nutrition security and output level through routine monitoring of crop performance, production levels, produce utilisation and income from sale.

24 PROMOTING VEGETABLE GARDENS Snapshot of Concern vegetable garden promotion

Nutrition-integrated programme (Zambia)

The RAIN programme (2010-2015) promoted kitchen garden and small livestock together with behaviour change communication for improved nutrition, health and hygiene behaviours.

The RAIN+ programme (2015-2017) continued the focus on vegetables production and nutrition but with an increased emphasis on women’s empowerment through a life skills component. The project also supported District Nutri- tion Coordination Committees, which helped

coordinate support for the gardens across agriculture, health and nutrition departments.

Vegetable gardens for livelihood (DRC)

Concern supported 25 vegetables gardens group in the IAPF programme (2012-2016) in Manono, Ka- tanga. Communal fields were established in lowland areas for dry season production with each farmer working on his/her individual plot. Training on vegetables production and technical support Seeds were provided along with seeds and watering canes.

Water was supplied through artisanal shallow wells and distributed manually. The main problem that emerged was the control of pest and disease, however through training on Integrated Pest Manage- ment, farmers managed to save the production.

Vegetable gardens in the dryland (Niger)

Concern supported women’s groups to establish dry- season gardens with trainings on vegetables production and inputs (seeds and tools). The gardens are located close to shallow wells previously built by FAO that provide water throughout the dry season. Women sell the produces in local markets around Tahoua, thus providing a valuable source of revenue to fulfil basic household needs.

Farmers are re-investing their income in seeds and fuel for the motor pumps each year. The activity is proving sustainable, gardens are still up and running years after Concern provided initial support, with farmers enthusiastically engaged in the production and able to make an income out of it.

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Vegetable production for resilience building (Chad)

The BRACED resilience programme (2015-2017) in Chad supported several women’s group to grow vegetables during the dry season through the provision of training and inputs, while water was sourced from nearby shallow wells. The aim was to promote both the consumption and sale of vegetables in order to diversify and improve diet and income at household level.

This intervention was part of a broader resilience strategy aimed at increasing people’s capacity to adapt their food production systems to the effects of climate change. Vegetable production can act as a buffer against shocks and stresses as they are produced off-season and not dependent on rain.

Integrated livelihood-nutrition programme in refugee camps (Ethiopia)

Concern has been implementing an integrated nutrition-livelihood programme since 2015 in a refugee camp in Pugnido I, Gambella Region, Western Ethiopia. Amongst the various interventions foreseen, vegetable gardens have played a central role for improving food and nutrition security and providing income opportunities among refugees. The intervention has operated at three levels: 1) the promotion of backyard gardens within the household compound, 2) the establishment of demonstration plots centrally located within the camp where training takes place and 3) demonstration gardens at nutrition sites where various production methods are demon- strated. Qualitative evaluations are showing that programme participants, and women heads of households in particular, have been able to grow vegetables for both consumption and sale, and that this has positively impacted theirs and their children dietary habits along with bringing income opportunities to fulfil other basic needs.

Figure:12 Nywar Kecha, a programme participating carrying out a demonstration session in her kitchen garden in Pugnido I refugee camp.

The programme is currently trying to expand the reach and scale of such interventions in order to further maximise potential benefits to refugee households.

26 PROMOTING VEGETABLE GARDENS Key Resources

http://epakag.ucdavis.edu/vegetables/factsheets/man-save-your-own-veg-seed-avrdc.pdf http://scalingupnutrition.org/

https://concern2com.sharepoint.com/sites/PQ_Guide/Pages/Concern%20Standard%20Indicators%20-% 20Livelihoods%20Indicators.aspx

Endnotes

1. Winch, T. (2014). Growing food. A guide to food production. London: Springer 2006 edition, 344 pg. 2. UNICEF, (1998). State of the World's Children. 3. http://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/africa-myths-and-facts/publication/women-agriculture-and- work-in-africa 4. Cunningham, K. et al. (2015). Women’s empowerment in agriculture and child nutritional status in rural Nepal. Public Health Nutrition: 18(17), 3134–3145. 5. Concern (2017). Community Resilience: experiences and learning. Knowledge Matters, Issue 20, December 2017 editions.

Annexes

Annex 1: Seasonal Calendar developed for the Malawi programme

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