Across the quiet courtyards of Kano, the sight of green shoots sprouting from small garden plots is fast becoming a symbol of hope.
What began as a modest drive to improve nutrition has evolved into a growing movement of women-led home gardens—proof that sometimes, the most powerful revolutions start right at home.
This week, the Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones, or SAPZ, programme under the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) distributed home gardening kits to 1,445 households across eight local governments of Kano State.
The programme belongs to the Targeted Nutrition Support Program of SAPZ’s Component 2, which aims to empower households, especially women, to grow nutrient-rich crops in their backyards.
The toolkits include vegetable seeds like spinach, tomato, and okra, along with simple irrigation tools and soil management training.
Each of the eight participating LGAs—Kura, Garun-Mallam, Bebeji, Dambatta, Gezawa, Dawakin-Tofa, Bichi, and Bagwai—received 180 household allocations, with women making up the majority of beneficiaries.
One garden at a time
But this effort goes beyond seeds and soil—it’s about giving families control over their nutrition.
In a state where malnutrition remains a persistent challenge, more than half of children under the age of five, about 51.9% are stunted due to chronic malnutrition, marking a severe public health crisis in the region.
According to UNICEF, such projects help supply a low-cost, sustainable solution for fortifying home diets.
Home gardens might be individual efforts, but, collectively, they make a big difference. IFAD notes that projects using home gardens of roughly 10 m² have been able to significantly enhance household access to fresh vegetables if accompanied by simple irrigation and nutrition education.
The SAPZ programme launched in Kano reflects a wider pattern across Nigeria’s agricultural sector, one focused on nutrition-sensitive agriculture and resilience at the local community rather than on single production at the traditional level.
Across Nigeria, similar projects are already driving powerful impacts. In Benue and Kaduna, the GAIN-SNiPS home-grown project has helped thousands of families to grow vegetables in their backyard — saving on food costs, improving diets, and opening up extra incomes for women from petty sales.
In Kano, the home gardening initiative builds on these successes—albeit with a local twist. It links urban and peri-urban homes with a group of small input providers, extension workers and local cooperatives.
And by receiving items like spray cans and seeds from within communities, the project promotes independence and local economies.
Aside from nutrition, the ripple effects are social. Home gardening draws communities closer, particularly among women who share tools, seedlings, and farming tips.
It also bridges the rural-urban gap, demonstrating that farming is not only possible in large fields but can succeed even in backyards, balconies, and recycled containers.
It is, however, challenging to scale up such schemes. Availability of water, especially in dry regions, remains a critical constraint. Most houses rely on hand-dug wells or an inconsistent public water supply.
There is also the problem of awareness. Nutrition education is often overlooked, but learning what to grow and how to prepare it could be as important as farming itself.
The long-term goal is clear—to move families from dependency to self-sufficiency. By equipping families, especially women, with information and resources, the programme hopes to create a new kind of food system based on resilience, not relief.
In many ways, these home gardens are revolutionising the scope of empowerment. They are giving power to women, who are usually not considered in commercial agriculture, to be able to sustain their families, earn small revenues, and be productive for the community.
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