At K Khel Government Middle School in Viswema, Nagaland, lunch starts in the school garden. Its 60-odd students grow vegetables that eventually make their way from the soil to their own plates.
The children help clear the land, plant seeds, water beds, remove weeds and make organic manure. For more than a decade, the garden has been part of their education, and, eventually, part of their lunch.
At a time when school meals are making headlines for the wrong reasons, the example raises a larger question: what should a nutritious school lunch look like, and how do we ensure every child receives one?
A garden beside the classroom
Recent videos have put that question back in focus.
In Uttar Pradesh’s Sitapur district, a viral video purportedly showed children being served thin potato curry, with burnt rotis. Following the virality of the videos on social media, the headmistress was suspended, the cook dismissed and an FIR registered. Action was also initiated against a senior education official over supervisory lapses.
Last year, another video from a government school in Odisha showed children being served boiled rice, watery curry and a boiled egg under the mid-day meal scheme.
Such incidents underline the need for stronger monitoring of a programme designed to ensure that children do not have to learn on an empty stomach.
In Viswema, a village of around 7,500 people in Nagaland’s Kohima district, one government school has spent years connecting that meal to the land around it.
The village is known for its pottery and mountain landscape, while terrace cultivation has long been part of local agricultural practice. At K Khel Government Middle School, farming found its way into the children’s education too.
The school began a small kitchen garden in 2011, initially to encourage gardening as a hobby and extracurricular activity. It later began using vacant land around the school to grow vegetables for students’ mid-day meals.
Under their teachers’ guidance, students cleared and levelled it, removed weeds and prepared green manure using organic waste collected from their homes. Photograph: (Representational image)
Today, students from Classes 1 to 8 grow beans, cabbage, pumpkin, squash, pomegranate and lemons, along with tubers and herbs. Maize and Naga dal form part of the staple crops, while mustard is grown in a small patch as a condiment.
The harvest makes its way into the children’s meals.
Head teacher Keneisenu Vitsu says the idea was rooted in teaching children practical agricultural skills.
“It all started in 2011. We decided to teach organic farming to the kids to inculcate in them the skill and knowledge of agriculture,” Vitsu told The Better India in an interview in 2020. She said the activity also helps children understand the dignity of labour and appreciate the environment.
The first plot was wasteland. Under their teachers’ guidance, students cleared and levelled it, removed weeds and prepared green manure using organic waste collected from their homes.
Organic farming continues to be part of the school’s Eco Club. Students learn cultivation alongside environmental conservation, while multi-cropping helps maintain soil health, improve water retention and support productivity.
What should a school meal provide?
The Mid-Day Meal Scheme, now called PM POSHAN (Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman), provides one hot cooked meal a day to children in Classes 1 to 8 in government and government-aided schools.
For children in Classes 1 to 5, each meal is required to provide 450 calories and 12 grams of protein, along with 100 grams of food grains, 20 grams of pulses, 50 grams of vegetables and 5 grams of oil or fat per child.
Last year, a video from a government school in Odisha showed children being served boiled rice, watery curry and a boiled egg under the mid-day meal scheme. Photograph: (Manjunath Kiran/AFP)
For Classes 6 to 8, the requirement rises to 700 calories and 20 grams of protein, with 150 grams of food grains and prescribed quantities of the other components.
These nutritional standards form the foundation of the school meal programme. A kitchen garden can then add something different: a chance for children to understand how food is grown and what goes into bringing it to the plate.
From the garden to the plate
At K Khel Government Middle School, that learning happens through experience.
Students see seeds turn into vegetables, learn how soil and seasons shape what grows, prepare manure from organic waste and understand the effort involved in cultivating food.
A kitchen garden will naturally look different from one school to another, depending on the land, climate and resources available. Viswema offers a simple idea that can travel much further: food education can begin well before lunchtime.
For these 60-odd students, it begins with a patch of earth beside their classroom, a few seeds and the experience of watching something they have grown eventually arrive on their plates.
