Eye on the Sahel

Activities to improve the nutritional quality of diets for young children reach significant numbers of people in Cameroon.

Participants cooked up healthy vegetable dishes after a training session.

WorldVeg Research Assistant Ronal Chendjou spread the good word about the work of WorldVeg in Cameroon’s Far North Region in a June interview with local newspaper L’oeil du Sahel. He’s working on a project with five health centers (in Mokolo 1, Mokolo 2, Mandaka-Chechem, Zamay and Mokong) and parents to improve diets, especially for children in the first two years of life. “Small farming families can produce a significant part of their daily food and nutritional needs by growing vegetables in household gardens,” said Ronal.

Vegetable production and nutrition activities in the region through the UNICEF / USAID project have produced impressive results. The WorldVeg team and partner KFW:

made 7,000 home visits;
hosted 200 cooking demonstrations attended by more than 9,000 people;
trained 240 community workers;
established 125 support groups;
established 4 community plots where villagers produce 2 tonnes of vegetables distributed to neighbors and used in cooking demonstrations;
helped distribute micronutrient powders to more than 5,000 children;
trained 600 households in market garden production; and
set up a demonstration plot in Mokong showing different varieties of black nightshade, amaranth, sorrel, sesame leaf, moringa, okra, tomato, carrot, eggplant and good vegetable production practices.

The figures are all the more impressive considering the challenges householders must address to establish successful gardens. For instance, access to suitable land and water is often constrained by local custom or availability. The prevailing view of gardening as “women’s work” means fewer men are exposed to good agricultural practices or are aware of the importance of consuming vegetables to obtain nutrients.

“Few men participate in home gardening and food preparation, yet they are an important lever in changing behaviors,” said Ronal. “We continue to reach out to them. Through feedback we have received, more men are coming to understand the merits of home gardens and community plots to diversify the local food supply.”