Farmpreneur: For nutrition security

"Malnutrition is a complex issue, but it is the main cause of death and disease in the world." (Dr. Francesco Branca, WHO). Globally, over 52 million under-fives are suffering malnutrition. Approximately 45% of deaths among children under five are linked to under nutrition(WHO). Nutritional security can be achieved by helping each child to become a farm enthusiast, especially in rural areas. Homestead nutrition garden at school and at home can be the potential weapon to fight malnutrition. These gardens could focus on locally available diverse vegetables and herbs. To increase the productivity of the garden, these gardens would be established on bio intensive raise beds. These low cost gardens puts the power in the hands of the family. They don't have to depend on external inputs for their nutritional security. A healthy family can make healthy community. And it can start with one inspired child. 

Problem: As per World Bank, India has one of the world's highest demographics of children suffering from malnutrition. (www.savethechildren.in/articles/malnutrition-in-india-statistics-state-wise). One of the key elements of food security is nutritional security which is conveniently ignored while focusing on carbohydrate rich farming. And the there is increase of dependency on artificial nutritional supplements.

Solution: School Nutrition garden when introduced to children, it not only provides farming skills but also inculcate behavior change by inculcating ownership. Ownership regarding improving Nutritional status of self and the family. Each child is also encouraged to initiate Homestead garden at home.

How are we changing the world?: Over the past 9 years, we have worked with thousands of schools. Students sets up School Nutrition Garden. It is managed completely by students. The vegetables are consumed through Mid Day meals in school. They are setting up homestead garden back at home as well. This has brought back several nutritious and locally available vegetables, herbs into their food plate. And at no additional cost. Because it uses local resources like seeds, saplings and Indigenous Traditional Knowledge (ITK). Along with this modern management technique is provided. Several business opportunities have also sprung up with this project. 

Farmpreneur program has two stage;

I. School nutritional garden; The curriculum has 3 goals; earning science and mathematics.

1. Nutrition: Survey of the students reveals the overall nutritional status. Discussion around nutrition helps children understand the importance of eating right.
2. Farming: Engaging students on taking ownership for nutrition security leads to setting up of organic school nutrition garden. Using ITK as well as modern scientific approach students manages the garden. This is evident from the usage of bio intensive raised beds, traditional pest control methods etc. Product from the garden is consumed in the Mid day meals.

3. Learning science & Mathematics: Garden provides the opportunity to students to learn academic subjects through experiential process. Entire garden becomes open science laboratory.
   

II. Homestead garden; Students are encouraged to set up homestead garden. Mothers are encouraged to help their child in this endeavor. This helps in improving the nutritional content of the meals consumed at home many folds. This movement slowly inspires the entire village to adopt homestead vegetable gardens and use organic methods to do the farming.

The primary target of the model is children in rural areas. Secondary target is mothers and the entire community. Malnutrition is most prevalent among children and mothers, especially in rural areas. In most of the families, it is still the mother who decides upon the family nutrition though they do not have much say on the incomes of the family. Farmpreneur provides a simple homely yet very powerful tool to achieve nutrition security for each family.

Each geographic area has its own unique vegetation and food habits. The program promotes locally available indigenous vegetables and herbs to be grown and consumed primarily. Local plants are more climate resilient and requires less care. This provides an edge to the families who do not have money to buy exotic seeds and saplings. A healthy family can make healthy community. And it can start with one inspired child.

Malnutrition is not just about availability but also related to our behaviour. There has been departure from wholesome balance diet to carbohydrate rich diets. Our farming sector also has moved away from balance farming to carbohydrate rich farming. Especially in rural areas, homestead garden is disappearing fast. These homestead gardens were a vital supplier of vitamins and other essential nutrients and micro nutrients. A movement to reclaim this lost heritage could be the first step towards nutrition security. This movement could be easily led by children and their families.

Most of programs to fight malnutrition is based on knowledge building and providing external inputs like Iron pills, Mid day meals etc. A sustainable solution is the one that helps the receiver takes the ownership for the solution. Ownership is built when beneficiaries actively participates and develop solutions using local sustainable resources. Social change begins when the power and the ownership is in the hands of people. Farmpreneur is a simple solution with completely localized contents. It would help communities to reclaim their lost tradition of homestead gardens. This will increase the dietary diversity through bringing back local nutritious vegetables and herbs back into their diet. The innovative part is that it engages children to be the 'Change makers'. Each child is mentored, provided requisite skills and encourage to take the leadership in this movement.

School Nutrition garden is at the core of this program. The program comfortably encompasses the two critical needs of the child, good nutrition and good education. We use bio intensive raised bed technology for setting up the farm. This increases the productivity of the garden. We conduct survey of the nutritional status of children. We use mobile app for collecting data. We also use various tools available online as teaching learning materials. 

Going forward we would like to develop an online platform to monitor as well as providing instructions and guidance.

Bio Intensive Raised bed farming has been successful in increasing productivity of the farms. This simple technology if brought back into the community will help in increasing food diversity. 

To fight malnutrition and hunger, young people needs to take up the leadership. And it has to start by identifying local solutions and led by Young Changemakers. 

Theory of Change: Homestead garden being established in schools and at home would help in achieving nutrition security. 

Objective 1: School nutrition gardens.

Sub objectives 

a) Establishment of bio intensive raised bed School Nutrition Garden

b) Students learn science and mathematics in more efficient ways

c) Supply fresh organic vegetables to the Mid Day Meal scheme of the school

d) Increase adoption of the health promoting behaviors among the students to enhance the nutrition status

Objective 2: Homestead gardens at home

Sub objectives 

a) Establishment of bio intensive raised bed homestead Garden

b) supply fresh organic vegetables to the home kitchen regularly

c) Engage family members in the homestead garden work. Encourage family to take up organic farming approach wherever possible.

d) Engage the village community through young leaders to achieve nutrition security through homestead gardening.

Since 2013, we have worked with more than 75,000 children across the country. More than 5000 School Nutrition Garden has been established. More than 6500 farmers have been trained so far.

With the adoption of our program 'Farmpreneur' by the Education department of Government of India, this program would reach out to 1.2 million schools across India.

Goals for the next 5 years;

- Spread the program across 1 million schools in India.

- Help Education department to institute the program in schools.

- Train atleast 100 institutes and people to carry out the project in different parts of the country.

- Spread out to other South east asian countries.

Some of the barriers that we are facing or we expect to face.

- Funding shortage. With the COVID-19 crisis looming, fundings will dry up as well as existing funders would like to focus more on and around COVID crisis.

- Qualified manpower shortage.We would also expect shortage of skilled manpower for the program.

For funding crisis, we would want to reach out diverse groups of institutes and high network individuals to help us with funding. Apart from reaching out to existing funders, we would reach out domestic as well as international funders. We are also planning to launch online fund raising campaign.

Farm2Food Foundation has designed and developed the Farmpreneur model. During its design - development phase we received inputs and support from Dhriiti - The Courage within.

Farmpreneur model is one of the most successful program of the organization. 

Full time team: 9

Field volunteers: 20

Field mentors: 150+

Farm2Food foundation has been working on this model since 2013. We have worked with institutes, government schools, local farmers. Our program has undergone several changes since its first inceptions. Our program has been recognized across the country. Education department of Government of Assam as well as Government of India has adopted the program. Although, it would need a lot of hand holding, but it is an fantastic opportunity to expand as well as go deep.

Director of the organization has 16 years of work experience in the development sector both at the grassroots as well as at policy management level. He has done his Undergraduation in Psychology and Masters in Education.

Senior program managers have been in the development sector for the past 10 years. They are themselves agri entrepreneurs. This experience gives them a unique advantage of looking at the solution from a farmers perspective as well as from a Development managers perspective.

- With Education department; In partnership with government we have launched our program in several schools across the country.

- We have few funding partnerships with organizations like National Foundation for India, Tata trusts, Commutiny the Youth Collective

Our farmpreneur curriculum provides the guidance and mentorship to students and schools on setting up bio intensive raised beds. Step by step approach to organizing the group, developing the garden project, organizing seed donation drives, mentorship by community members are provided in the farmpreneur project.

The project provides 3 immediate needs of the school and students;

a) Improving the nutrition content of the mid day meals served in the schools. School Nutrition Garden supplies vegetables regularly to the mid day meals scheme.

b) Helps improving learning. School nutrition garden acts as an open science laboratory. Students learn science and mathematics through activity based methods.This helps in improving the learning levels in rural schools tremendously.

c) Help develop skills and attitude for farm entrepreneurship. Farmpreneur program has been designed around low cost and locally available Indigenious Technology and Knowledge. And  amalgamated with modern scientific approach. This makes it not just easy to adopt but also brings in immediate results.

Once the skills are acquired, children goes on to set up Homestead gardens at home. It immediately attracts the attention of the family and slowly the community. This slowly brings the attention of the community this low cost innovative model of farming. Farm2Food Foundation provides training on agri entrepreneurship to the community. This includes diversifying crops, better management of crops and market linkages. Homestead farming of vegetable is an integral part of this process. 

We are at growth stage now. Our model has been tried, tested and re calibrated to provide the most impact. This is the stage where we need support to expand. Supports we need at this stage are

a) Mentoring support

b) Funding support

c) Media outreach support 

a) Grant support: To scale up our work we would need grant supports

b) Mentoring support: We would like to partner with institute and individuals who could provide us guidance for scaling up our work.

c) Media out reach: We would need partnership with media houses to share our story far and wide.

a) Grant support: To scale up our work we would need grant supports. We would like to engage with institutes and individuals who could either provide us grant support or help us link up with networks of funders.

b) Mentoring support: We would like to partner with institute and individuals who could provide us guidance for growth of our work. We would like to have institute such as MIT as a mentor to help us scale up our work.

c) Media out reach: We would need partnership with media houses to share our story far and wide.