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School vegetable gardening: Concept, curriculum and Action
... Schools had also received money from the project to build a plastic tunnel, buy a water tank, fencing materials, and fertilizer and hire labor for land preparation as required. The intervention builds on an earlier pilot of school gardens in Nepal by the same research team (Bhattarai, Subedi, and Schreinemachers 2016;Schreinemachers et al. 2017). Children from grades 4 and 5 were trained on gardening and nutrition using a 23-week curriculum that was often taught in the school garden. ...
Food systems in many countries are experiencing a shift from traditional foods toward processed foods high in sugar, fat and salt, but low in dietary fiber and micronutrients. There is an urgent need to better understand drivers of changing food behavior, particularly for lower-income countries. This study analyzes drivers of food choice among children and parents in rural Nepal. It uses qualitative data collected through key informant interviews and focus group discussions with school children, parents and teachers. The study reveals substantial changes in food behavior during the past decade with increased consumption of rice, meat, and highly processed snack foods while an increased consumption of fruit and vegetables is not evident. It identifies cash availability is the main driver of increased rice, meat and snack food consumption. The second driver is the 2015 Nepal earthquake, which accelerated the transition from homegrown food to purchased food as people got habituated to eating more meat and snack foods while reconstruction tripled local wages and changed the food environment. This shows how humanitarian assistance in the wake of extreme shocks can unintentionally contribute to unhealthy eating habits. An integrated school and home garden intervention appears to contribute to healthier diets.
... The school garden programmes in each country were designed in collaboration between the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Education. For details see (Bhattarai et al., 2016;Bhattarai et al., 2017;Ouedraogo et al., 2017;Rai et al., 2017). This collaboration across ministries was an important aspect of the project. ...
... The school garden intervention consisted of a physical garden for hands-on experience in vegetable growing and nutrition education following a booklet with 23 weekly learning modules (Bhattarai et al., 2016). It involved children in grades 4 and 5 (aged 8-12 years old). ...
School gardens have become a widely used approach to influence children's food knowledge, preferences and choices in low-and high-income countries alike. However, evidence indicates that such programs are more effective at influencing food knowledge and preferences than actual food choices. Such finding may occur because school gardens insufficiently influence the food behavior of parents and because healthy food items are not always available in children's homes. We tested this hypothesis using a one-year cluster randomized controlled trial in Nepal with 15 treatment and 15 control schools and a matched sample of 779 schoolchildren (aged 8-12) and their caregivers. Data were collected before and after the intervention during the 2018-2019 school year. In addition, children's food consumption was monitored using a monthly food logbook. Average treatment effects were quantified with a double-difference estimator. For caregivers, the intervention led to a 26% increase in their food and nutrition knowledge (p < 0.001), a 5% increase in their agricultural knowledge (p = 0.022), a 10% increase in their liking for vegetables (p < 0.001), and a 15% increase in home garden productivity (p = 0.073). For children, the intervention had no discernible effect on food and nutrition knowledge (p = 0.666) but led to a 6% increase in their liking for vegetables (p = 0.070), healthy food practices (p < 0.001), and vegetable consumption (October-December +15%; p = 0.084; January-March +26%; p = 0.017; April-June +26%; p = 0.088). The results therefore indicate both schools and parents matter for nudging children toward healthier food choices.
The study was conducted during 2020-2021 to identify the contribution of home garden
interventions towards household access to vegetables amidst COVID-19 pandemic in
Nepal. Kavreplanchok district was the selected site of study wherein checklist, focus
group discussion and field observation were the major data collection methods. Women
in the treatment group participated in home gardening orientation and vegetable gardening
activities, however, only data collection was done in the control group. Post-intervention
data showed 46% households in treatment group practiced improved organic vegetable
gardening technologies as compared to 10.67% in control. Furthermore, annual vegetable
requirement met from home garden was 62% in treatment group, while it was only 36 %
in control group. Similarly, the knowledge on nutrition, home gardening technology and
proper handling of vegetables has increased significantly.
This book critically assesses the role of agrobiodiversity in school gardens and its contribution to diversifying diets, promoting healthy eating habits and improving nutrition among schoolchildren as well as other benefits relating to climate change adaptation, ecoliteracy and greening school spaces. Many schoolchildren suffer from various forms of malnutrition and it is important to address their nutritional status given the effects it has on their health, cognition, and subsequently their educational achievement. Schools are recognized as excellent platforms for promoting lifelong healthy eating and improving long-term, sustainable nutrition security required for optimum educational outcomes. This book reveals the multiple benefits of school gardens for improving nutrition and education for children and their families. It examines issues such as school feeding, community food production, school gardening, nutritional education and the promotion of agrobiodiversity, and draws on international case studies, from both developed and developing nations, to provide a comprehensive global assessment. This book will be essential reading for those interested in promoting agrobiodiversity, sustainable nutrition and healthy eating habits in schools and public institutions more generally. It identifies recurring and emerging issues, establishes best practices, identifies key criteria for success and advises on strategies for scaling up and scaling out elements to improve the uptake of school gardens.
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