Kahe, TZ – Grandparents Using Garden to Support Grandchildren and Invest in Chickens – 27 Feb 2015

The RYS family is a husband and wife taking care of four grandchildren. The grandchildren are students at Rau River Primary School. The grandparents, age 56 and 52, are small scale farmers who grow corn and beans on their two acre farm.

They started their organic vegetable garden in August, 2014. Since then they have successfully grown mustard, amaranth, beans, cow peas, and okra. These harvests have helped the family enjoy vegetables with their meals every day since their first harvest. The children report feeling better and missing less school and the parents are happy to sell additional vegetables to invest in small businesses and pay school fees. In five months the family has sold 55,000 TZS (US $32.35) of vegetables.

After paying daily expenses and school fees the parents invested the remaining 30,000 TZS (US $17.64) by purchasing three egg-laying chickens. Since their initial investment the family has increased the total number of chickens to eight. They hope to continuing growing the business and investing in a better chicken coop so they can sell eggs.

The vegetable garden that has made all these improvements possible has sadly been damaged by grasshoppers during the dry season, so the family is also working with the Tupendane garden shop to develop strategies for minimizing this damage. The grasshopper season just ended so the family has about nine months before the bugs return. They hope next year they’ll be ready!