For cultural and ecological reasons, the diet of inhabitants in this semi-arid region is chronically low in vegetables and fruits. Consequently, there are high levels of avitaminosis and malnutrition in the region, especially among women and children. Another problem is an increase of the indiscriminate use of pharmaceutical medicines and the loss of traditional knowledge about the medicinal use of native plants. The goal of the Food and Health Education Program (FHEP) is to train people, in particular women, giving them the intellectual tools to improve their diet and the health of their families and introduce them to an agroecological vision of the environment in which they live. This goal is pursued by promoting courses and meetings about the following themes: basic nutrition, health linked with eating habits, food preservation, home gardening practices adapted to the semi-arid environment, medicinal plants and their use for safe, homemade production of medicines, where interpersonal and intergenerational transfer of knowledge is promoted. Importance is given to the rescue of traditional uses of medicinal plants and their preservation, and to an agroecological home gardening approach.  

In recent years, agricultural productivity declines caused by severe and prolonged regional droughts have combined with ecologically maladapted farming practices to reduce the nutritional value of the region's already poor diet. The FHEP has helped improve this situation in many ways. Training people about the nutritional value of food and helping them to start home gardens using household waste water has proved an effective way for improving the quality of life in the communities. Growing vegetables, fruit and medicinal plants near houses using only small amounts of water is one approach that may help slow emigration from the region. The rescue and validation of traditional knowledge on medicinal plants empowers people and promotes self-esteem. By learning to use medicinal plants to produce effective homemade medicines for the most common diseases, family health is improved while promoting intergenerational knowledge transfer. Home gardening activities are good tools for introducing agroecological concepts like resource conservation, nutrient recycling, ecologically-sound management of soil, pests, and diseases and the interrelationships between plants, soil and climate. Functioning like an open laboratory, farmers learn and experiment with agroecological practices in home gardens with a low level of risk. Once familiar with these practices, farmers gain confidence in applying them in their fields. 

Conserve Resources

The use of waste water for home gardens combined with efficient irrigation systems represent a conservative use of this very scarce resource. The rescue and validation of of traditional use of endangered medicinal plants combined with household cultivation systems conserves genetic resources.

Diversify

Growing vegetables, fruit trees and medicinal plants helps farmers improve the crop diversity while enriching their diets.

Empower People

By valuing, improving and transferring their local knowledge, women gain self-esteem and are able to improve the nutrition and health situation of their families. Moreover, the FHEP works to mobilize entire peasant communities.

Maximize Long-Term Benefits

Using home gardens to produce food and medicinal plants represents a long term benefit to households that can contribute to slowing down the rural exodus from the region.

Value Health

Nutritional education combined with home production and use of vegetables, fruits and medicinal plants improves the health of rural populations.