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Martha Leboho Masvingo Bureau

Helen McGhie Primary School here has ventured into banana production to boost nutrition and generate income with over three tonnes of the crop expected to be produced per annum, beginning next year.

This emerged during a recent Secretary’s Merit Award handover ceremony graced by the Secretary in the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education Dr Sylvia Utete-Masango at the school recently.

Headmistress Mrs Shiela Deve said the school had started a banana plantation with an initial 125 trees.

Mrs Deve said plans were afoot to further expand the plantation to boost banana output at the school, which is among the best primary school institutions in Masvingo city.

“We have 125 banana trees in our plantation and according to experts if everything goes well each tree will produce hundreds of bananas beginning next year,” she said.

“It is a special banana tree, which was introduced to us from Honde Valley (Manicaland province) by some of our officials within the district leadership of our ministry and within a year we will start harvesting fruit.”

Mrs Deve said besides feeding schoolchildren, surplus bananas will also be sold in the nearby Masvingo city to generate the much-needed income.

“The main aim for this project (banana) is to feed our pupils and income generation from sale of surplus will be an added bonus. This project will widen our revenue base because already we have running mushroom and vegetable projects that are doing very well.

“Our vegetable farming project is mainly to feed our Early Childhood Development pupils since we have a school feeding scheme.

“We are also into mushroom farming and we are focusing on the oyster type since it requires less labour and inputs,” said Mrs Deve.

At the ceremony Dr Utete-Masango handed over 45 laptops and one projector donated by FBC Bank to the school.