Ngara, TZ – Mukirehe School partners with local social enterprise to manage banana field – 30 Nov 2022

It is seven months since Mukirehe School and parents met to partner with SODAT for management services for banana fields that includes maintaining and recording a harvest ledger. This brought hopes and has since shown improvement in production and accounting for 124,000 TZS net income from selling 31 banana bunches that had never been recorded before.

Mukirehe school field has 388 banana trees planted purposely for the school breakfast Banana, Beans and Corns (BBC) program. 38 banana bunches out of 69 harvested were served at school breakfast to substitute for corn and beans in order to sustain the feeding chain until the next harvest seasons for corn and beans. SODAT also assisted the school strategically to start an emergency Corn and Beans’ stock program for serving during any breakfast ingredients supply gap, and when parents’ harvests are too poor for them to contribute to feeding in school due to the weather factors.

Banana tree diseases and drought reduced tree numbers and production due to inconsistent rains this year, which made the school and SODAT collaborate with farming officers to remove sick trees in order to save healthy trees. The officer also advised to apply mulching to the field to restore the soil fertility and moisture by protecting from direct sun. This adds more value to the growth and production of healthy banana bunches for a good income at the market.

SODAT and the school farming program’s new teacher agreed on collaborating to manage the farm, track production, use best farming techniques for growing for feeding the children and marketing. Moreover, they are planning to plant 280 new banana trees to expand the project to three quarters of an acre size for more income at this school. To accomplish this project, they have arranged banana seedlings and labor. Manure for planting is a challenge as students won’t get at once the five truck loads of required manure from their home animals since they use on their home fields which causes SODAT to buy from pig farmers outside Ngara town.