Kilimanjaro, TZ – MGA Family Successful Garden – 28 Feb 2014

The MGA family was the first family to start a garden with the Lishe Bora Garden Shop. The garden’s roadside location helped other families in the community see the benefits of the new gardening methods and also increased the family’s ability to sell the vegetables and earn an income.

Mother and father with four of eight kids.

From the beginning the family has strived to have the highest quality garden they can. They are quick learners and are always eager to implement new strategies that Mary shares with them. They are also proactive in their application of best practices. The family was one of the first to begin putting multiple sticks around their seedlings to protect them from cut worms. They have also worked to apply the principles they are learning to expand their garden. The same day they finished planting their garden they built new beds all around the borders of the garden to increase productivity. They also started planting vegetables in the area surrounding their garden. Their first major crop outside the garden was a very successful tomato crop. The family is now learning how to start their own nursery, but a water shortage is making this difficult.

The MGA family’s hard work is beginning to pay off for them. For years they have run a small shop and they have slowly been expanding this shop using income and savings from their garden. They sell excess vegetables from the shop and are able to sell for above market price because they are open on off-market days and people know their vegetables are organic. During the high-season, when a bundle of leafy-green vegetables ordinarily sells for 300 TZS ($0.19) the family can sell a bundle for 500 TZS ($0.31). According to the MGA family, they are able to sell as much as 20,000 TZS ($12.50) of vegetables per month. By reinvesting profits from the shop the family has slowly expanded and is now the only place in Mkyashi that sells fish on off-market days.

The MGA family garden.

Between children and grandchildren the Msaranga’s have eight children living with them. The health and education of these children is the most important thing to them. Thus, they are very grateful to have chemical-free vegetables to feed their children and most times when you visit the family you will find at least one child enjoying a bowl of ugali (boiled flour) and vegetables.

They have also used profits from their shop and garden to buy small solar lights for the children to use for studying.

With all these successes the family is still facing some challenges, the biggest of which is water. Gardening takes a lot of water and right now it is time-consuming and expensive for the family to get water. The closest water source is a farrow about 300 meters from the family’s home. During the dry season this is closed on some days, meaning they must go even further to find water. The father of the family suffers from asthma so he cannot bring too much water each day. Most of the children living at home are young, so they can’t carry more than a few liters at a time. This leaves one older child – age 17 – or local water fetchers to supply water. The cost of using the fetchers is 200 TSH per bucket for the Msarangas because of how far they are from the water source. This is a huge drag on the profitability of the garden and during the dry season the family will often choose not to water because they can’t afford it, which decreases productivity as well. The family is hoping to be part of a community group that will work together towards a solution to this problem.

Once they have found a solution to their water problem, the MGA family is looking forward to further expanding their shop and buying additional livestock to further diversify their income.