Moshi, TZ – Good harvesting under a grey sky! – 15 May 2021

The sky maybe cloudy and grey, but the students of Mwangaria Primary School have bright spirits as they harvest the school’s corn field for their Grow-own-Breakfast program. They had previously participated with preparing and planting the 2.5 acres of fields, which is half an acre above their original plan!

Our partner Tupendane assists the school with management, mentoring, materials and measurement services. Mwangaria Primary has 220 students compared to other Grow-own-Breakfast schools that have between 500 to 800 students apiece. The 2.5 acres has the capacity to sustain the school’s breakfast serving program year after year. Over time the program becomes more sustainable because the school learns how to reduce farm costs and expand their farmed acres, so that they can sell surplus crops to pay for the agricultural inputs like seeds and sprays.

This is the school’s first crop since 2019. Originally, Mwangaria planned to plant two acres of corn but discovered that they had enough inputs for an additional half acre. Tupendane worked shoulder to shoulder with the community to make it happen. To manage the risk of flooded fields, ploughing and planting was moved up a month to take advantage of receiving the rain at the appropriate time. The crop matured well, despite the challenges of limited rains, and higher costs of inputs due to the pandemic, so the harvest was a success.

This success has given the school and Tupendane the confidence to investigate adding sweet potatoes because they can withstand flooding. Therefore, the Tupendane Pilot Farm is trialing them. It is a good test because the farm is currently flooded and they will check the condition of the crop when the water recedes. The principal of the Mwangaria Primary School is hoping that they will be a good alternative food and cash crop during flood seasons.