I take my hat off for the Save School project team, led by Rose Nibagwire, making what to me looks like the biggest compost heap ever. It is quite common practice for schools to keep a few cows, usually in a zero grazing set up to supplement incomes and the food for the children in the school.
When I visited there in February I chatted with members from a permaculture project who were encouraging more meat and dairy consumption especially with young people as there is a level of retarded development in the population due to shortage of protein in the diet. The African diet is very heavy on carbs and fruit and sometimes essential nutrients can be lacking, so I can see a great need for more food production within schools and hard wired into the curriculum.
The two pictures above were taken at a different school, but Save School has the same issue, they have a small dairy herd but they are not making compost from the manure. The head teacher told Rose that when their fields need more nutrients they buy in fertiliser. He had also previously mentioned that the school seems to lose money on their growing and farming, and this is clearly one of the reasons why.
We need to press with our organic approaches and permaculture education to create the outcomes these schools need and to close the loop on some of these nutrient cycles.
