ALL THE CASAVA YOU COULD EAT

As I stood in the middle of one of our school gardens, surrounded by cassava plants that came up past my shoulders and the beautiful hills of Sierra Leone, I felt an immense optimism for this fertile country. Two months before I came to Africa, the “Global Food Crisis” had hit and the foods and grains that are typically treated merely as a commodity in the West were decreasing in supply and increasing in price: Simple economics in a well-developed market economy. While people in Canada had to reach deeper into their pockets at the supermarket, higher prices of grains in Sierra Leone forced families to buy even less – often resulting in not just smaller meals, but fewer of them.

In a country with a vast and untapped agricultural potential, it is upsetting to know that it imports more food than it exports and that its people are malnourished and dependent on a market that they are rarely a part of. A systemic mix of poor infrastructure, lack of technology, politics and other factors that come with poverty have stunted the growth of agriculture in Sierra Leone and has kept its people from obtaining the “food sovereignty” they deserve. The potential is here, however, and our school gardens are a small and important step in the right direction. Our students are learning about agriculture and science and also get to eat what they grow when the crops are harvested. And as CAUSE Kids grows, so will the number of well-educated future farmers who will both feed and free their country. As always, a big thank you to all our supporters who are helping to nourish young minds, bodies and spirits!

Photos: A student waters some of the vegetables in the school garden and one of the mothers dishing out a big bowl of casava and sauce for lunch at the school.