OL 303 Assignment Four Homework
Online Learning: OL 303 Vegetable Gardens & Community Gardens for Family Nutrition & Food Security
https://csd-i.org/vegetable-gardens-community-gardens-food/
This week’s resources:
Assignment Four Discussion
CSDi Development Community & the Family Food Security Group
Magee Example Project Assignment Four
Assignment 4. Evaluating baseline surveys and preparing a draft home garden plan
This assignment will form the basis for the 12 month garden project and will provide the information that you will need to share with a nutritionist and an agriculturalist.
Part one. Evaluating the surveys.
I would suggest that you skim the background documents for the surveys that you read last week to remind yourself how to evaluate the surveys. What we’re ultimately looking for here is what’s missing in the community’s diet.
If food security — is it chronic — or is it seasonal? Look on pages 18 through 22 of the USAID Household Food Insecurity Access Scale background document that’s in the download course documents page for an overview of how to rate the survey. Do they have:
adequate food access
a mild food access deficit
a moderate food access deficit
a severe food access deficit
If food diversity — what are they missing in their diets? Is it cultural, lack of knowledge, or lack of access? Go to pages 13 through 18 of the FAO guidelines for measuring household and individual dietary diversity to see how to rate the survey. Do they have:
low dietary diversity
medium dietary diversity
high dietary diversity
Part two. Food goals.
In this part of the assignment were going to establish food goals that will bridge the gap between a good diet and what you found is missing in their diet based upon your evaluation of the surveys.
If their main challenge is food security, what will the goal be to make them food secure.
If the challenge is food diversity and nutrition, what will the goal be to give them the diverse nutritious diet that they need.
Part three. Interest in gardening
In reviewing the home gardening survey what is the level of interest in the home garden and what is the capacity that the community members have in home gardening?
Do they have any interest in using a home garden to improve their diets?
Do they have sound knowledge in home gardening?
Do they have space for a home garden?
Will they be able to afford basic tools and inputs such as seeds?
Is water available for their home gardens?
Part four. Draft plan
In this part you going to combine the three elements above into a draft plan of your goals for a home garden project. You draft plan will address the following issues.
1. The garden is aimed primarily at addressing food security. If so is this seasonal, or chronic? What types of things could be grown to address this issue?
The garden is aimed primarily at addressing nutrition and food diversity. If so what elements are missing in their diet. What types of things could be grown to address this issue?
2. The community members have a good knowledge of efficient home gardens but are missing basic information on what they could grow for nutrition.
The community members lack good knowledge of efficient home gardening and so will need to start with the beginning workshop.
3. The community members have plenty of room around their homes for planning a garden.
The community members don’t have much room around their homes for a garden. What types of things could be grown to address this constraint?
4. They have access to water for their garden.
Waters limiting factor in planning for their garden. What techniques could be used and what types of things could be grown to address this constraint?
5.The members have access to basic gardening tools, or will be able to afford to buy them. They will also be able to afford to purchase basic seeds and other inputs.
The members will not be able to afford tools and basic inputs. How we are planning to address this?
Part five. Meeting with experts
Identify a nutritionist and an agriculturalist who have experience working with communities in development. They will need to have this development experience and cultural sensitivity in order to help you fully develop your plan and transfer knowledge to the communities. Make an appointment with them for next week to share your draft plan and the results of your surveys. If possible, it might be nice to meet with both of them at the same time for this first introductory meeting.
The homework to turn in will be:
1. The results of the survey and a short (a couple of sentences) summary of their level of food security and underlying causes, and a short summary of their level of food diversity and underlying causes.
2. A short summary of what’s missing in their diets and what goals could you establish to address this.
3. A short summary of their interests and capacities in home gardening.
4. A draft plan of your twelve-month home gardening program.
5. The name of the two people you’ve made an appointment with her next week.
Go to Magee’s Example Project Assignment four to see what this could look like.
See you next week.