June 2026
Even limited urban spaces can become effective platforms for learning, stewardship, and behaviour change. The SowGood Foundation in Delhi NCR, through a three-year programme, has engaged children in food growing, waste management, and sustainability initiatives. This work highlights how hands-on farming can strengthen environmental awareness, promote healthier habits, and encourage community engagement.
As cities expand and open spaces shrink, many children grow up with limited opportunities to engage directly with nature or understand how food is produced. Urban agriculture offers a vital way to bridge this gap by creating spaces where children can learn through growing food themselves, while also developing a greater appreciation for the environment.
Recognising this gap, Pragati Chaswal founded the SowGood Foundation in 2017 to explore how farming could be used as a tool for environmental learning among urban children. What began as a small farm with a handful of children has since evolved into a programme reaching children across Delhi NCR through dedicated learning farms and school-based initiatives.
SowGood's approach is based on the premise that hands-on engagement with farming can help build environmental awareness and responsible behaviour in children. A child who grows a seed into a plant, nurtures the soil, composts waste, and learns about food production develops a deeper understanding of the relationship between people and nature. The programme also emphasises collective learning and community participation, encouraging children, parents, and teachers to engage with sustainability together.
Situated in the densely populated urban landscape of Delhi NCR, the learning farm serves as a space where children can experience farming firsthand. Children adopt a ‘mini-khet’ — a small plot where they decide what to grow, how to grow it, and how to care for it with support from facilitators. Over time, the initiative has developed into a community of parents and children who regularly engage in farming activities and discussions around sustainable living. Many children also become more willing to consume vegetables, including unfamiliar varieties, after participating in the growing process themselves.
To reach a wider group of children, SowGood developed a three-year school programme that combines food growing, waste management, and community engagement. The programme typically begins in Grade 3 and continues through Grade 5, with facilitators visiting schools regularly. School spaces that are often underutilised, such as rooftops, walls, and open corners, are transformed into productive growing areas through rooftop farms, vertical gardens made from recycled bottles, and growing beds constructed from repurposed materials such as old tyres.
Year One: Vichaar (Awareness)
The first year focuses on introducing children to farming and helping them establish a connection with nature. Students collectively plan, design, and develop a school farm while learning about food production through practical activities.
Academic concepts, seasonal cycles, and environmental issues are integrated into farm-based learning. Topics include composting, watering, mulching, root systems, and crop growth. Through regular interaction with the farm, children begin to appreciate the effort involved in food production. At the end of each crop cycle, they harvest produce, take it home, and often share it with family members and classmates.
Crop selection plays an important role in maintaining children's interest and ensuring successful harvests. The programme prioritises crops that are easy to manage and provide quick, visible results. These include microgreens, spinach, amaranth (cholai), fenugreek (methi), and beans. During summer, Malabar spinach (poysag), water spinach (kalmisag), and gourds such as ghiya and tinda perform well in school farms. Working with seasonal crops has proved important for maintaining participation and building confidence among first-time growers.
Year Two: Aachaar (Practice)
The second year focuses on examining everyday habits and their environmental implications. Waste management serves as a practical entry point for discussing consumption patterns and resource use.
Schools establish waste management units where children analyse the types of waste generated in their homes and schools. Through these activities, students explore alternatives that reduce waste and environmental impacts. Discussions include replacing aluminium foil with cloth wraps, choosing reusable steel containers instead of plastic, and finding ways to reuse partially used notebooks and other materials.
Rather than treating waste as a separate environmental issue, the programme links waste generation, consumption choices, and sustainability. This helps children understand how everyday decisions influence the environment.
Year Three: Prachaar (Propagate)
The third year extends learning beyond the school campus. Children engage with local communities, including shopkeepers, neighbours, friends, and family members, undertaking activities designed to promote environmentally responsible practices.
Teacher training is also a crucial component of this phase. Teachers are encouraged to utilise school farms as living classrooms where textbook concepts can be taught through practical experiences.
The experience at Ghitorni Girls School illustrates how the programme evolved. Many students at the school are first-generation learners whose families migrated from rural areas to Delhi in search of livelihoods and opportunities. While several children were familiar with agriculture through family histories, the connection between food production and daily consumption had weakened in the urban context.
Many students initially participated with hesitation but gradually became more confident as they assumed responsibility for planning, planting, composting, and harvesting activities. Changes became visible in various ways: some children started growing plants at home, others adopted healthier food habits, and several began composting household waste.
During the third year, students used *katran* (scrap fabric) to produce cloth shopping bags, which they distributed to local juice vendors and grocery shopkeepers. Through this activity, they encouraged conversations about reducing single-use plastics while drawing on skills already present within their communities.
Across all three years, emphasis is placed on helping children understand *why* particular actions matter. Whether composting organic waste, reducing plastic use, or improving soil health, activities are linked to broader environmental concerns so that practice is informed by understanding.
Challenges and lessons
Implementing urban agriculture programmes in schools has not been without challenges. Limited space, seasonal variability, maintenance during school holidays, and sustaining long-term engagement require continuous adaptation. Experience from participating schools has highlighted the importance of selecting context-appropriate crops, involving teachers from the outset, and integrating farm activities with classroom learning to ensure continuity and ownership.
Outcomes and reflections
Since 2017, the programme has reached over 78,000 children across more than 25 schools, trained over 150 teachers, diverted over 80,000 kilograms of waste from disposal streams, and produced approximately 5,400 kilograms of food through school and community farms.
While these figures indicate the scale of outreach, the more significant outcomes are reflected in changes in attitudes and practices. Experiences from participating schools suggest that urban agriculture can serve as an effective platform for environmental education, healthier food habits, and community engagement. The initiative demonstrates that even densely populated urban spaces can become sites of learning, food production, and ecological stewardship.
Priyanshi Prasad
SowGood Foundation
New Ansal Villas, Satbari,
New Delhi, Delhi 110074
Email: priyanshi.sowgood@gmail.com
