Ngara, TZ – Mukibogoye Primary School replants banana farm – 15 July 2020

Mukibogoye Primary School lost all of its banana due to a disease in 2019. For a year, they have been organizing and preparing to replant the farm and have succeeded in doing so.

Last year, Mukibogoye lost 95% of their banana farm due to disease and had to be torn out and burned. Fortunately, after a year of organizing, they planted the local variety. The same variety at Mukibogoye’s sister schools, Kabalenzi and Mukirehe who have benefited from the good quality of banana bunches year after year.

Bananas provide a sustainable source of food and income for the schools and the region. Bananas are the traditional food of people living in Ngara region. When properly maintained and applied with manure each year, Bananas trees reproduce and provide bunches all on their own each year making them very low cost in total ownership. It is predicted each school will be able to use the bananas to maintain themselves through selling off of bunches, paying for additional ingredients for breakfast serving, and feeding the students.

While bananas are great crops to produce for the schools, they only produce in large quantities once a year and never steadily at the rate needed to sustain the school.

However, the return on the investment in banana is still great enough to encourage more expansion and growth!