How Do You Make a City Greener? Teach the Children Climate-Smart Agriculture
This post is written by Katie Mouton, USDA Forest Service.
In Ghana, the agricultural sector will likely be the most sensitive sector to climate change. Erratic precipitation will make rain-fed agriculture difficult, and few Ghanaian farmers have irrigation. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service is working with Ghanaian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and communities to find creative solutions for agricultural production.
In western Ghana's major coastal city, Sekondi Takoradi, 100 school children have become urban farmers thanks to the vision of two women. A portion of their school grounds are now pesticide-free vegetable gardens and as a result school lunches now include fresh tomatoes, cucumber and okra. School administrators are pleased with the cost savings, while students and parents appreciate the added nutrition to their daily lunches.
Magdeline Appiah, age 12, took the skills she learned in school and started her own vegetable garden at home. She supplies fresh produce for her family’s meals and earns an income by selling her surplus.“I have developed a passion for farming, and it’s yielded so many results. I’m elated,” said Ms. Appiah.
Meet Faustina Arkhurst and Perpetua Kwakuyi: the two champions of the urban farming project. Faustina Arkhurst is the principal of Tessark International School and provided the vision behind smart agriculture being included in the curriculum. She’s the daughter of a farmer and is passionate about environmental stewardship and nutrition. Arkhurst met Mary Perpetua Kwakuyi, founder of Goshen Global Vision, during a city-wide tree planting initiative in Sekondi Takoradi, that Ms. Kwakuy was leading. Principal Akhurst’s students were some of the hundreds of people who showed up to line the road medians with native seedlings and to plant trees in public spaces.
The event helped to spark Principal Arkhurst’s idea to include agriculture in the classroom. “I visited Goshen’s nurseries after the event. I loved all the greenery. I wanted our children to be involved and to learn,” said Principal Arkhurst. Goshan Global Vision is a grantee of the USDA Forest Service. The Forest Service helped them to refine their nursery practices and encouraged them to build relationships with the community and government.
Principal Arkhurst approached Ms. Kwaykuyi about starting a demonstration farm on Tessark International School grounds. The results — in both produce and learning — have been transformative for the student body. The demonstration farms are helping students learn smart agricultural practices through experience. Participants have learned how to identify vegetable seeds, propagate seedlings, maintain a nursery and plant their vegetables and trees in small spaces with recycled containers, such as sacks, old car tires and used plastics.
“We’ve made so many gains through the project. I’ve already relocated the existing school garden to allow for more space and more student participation,” said Principal Arkhurst. Tessark School is now preparing for the next phase of the smart agriculture project — mushroom farming. Principal Arkhurst expects it to further augment the school feeding program, expand student skills and position the school to become a model for other schools looking to embrace a smart agriculture curriculum.
Smart agriculture projects can help Ghana adapt to the impacts of climate change. Adaptation funding under PREPARE is allowing the Forest Service and partners to implement creative programs like these more broadly in Ghana, and globally.
Goshan Global Vision is also thrilled with the results at Tessark. “We plan to support more schools and households in the Secondi Takoradi metropolis. We can help school and families augment their nutrition and income and make western Ghana a greener place to live,” said Perpetua Kwaykuyi. Under Ms. Kwaykuyi’s leadership, Goshen Global Vision has planted, nurtured and mapped (for planning and accountability) 220,000 native trees species on 11,000 hectares of landscape in western Ghana. This in addition to her school and household smart agriculture projects. After only three years of operation, Goshen Global Vision won an AFR100 prize for top African NGOs.