From garden to plate: contribution of school kitchen gardens to micronutrient intake among primary school children in Nyaruguru District, Southern Rwanda

Over two billion individuals globally suffer from micronutrient deficiencies, with school-aged children in low- and middle-income nations being particularly at risk. In Rwanda’s Nyaruguru District, the most food-insecure of Rwanda’s 30 districts, food insecurity is reported at 42.3%, stunting at 39.2%, vitamin A deficiency at 31.4%, iron deficiency anemia at 28.7%, and zinc deficiency at 42.1%. School kitchen gardens (SKGs) present a cost-effective strategy to enhance child nutrition by cultivating fruits and vegetables for school meals. A cross-sectional study was conducted in Nyaruguru District from February 2025 to February 2026, assessing dietary patterns across different seasons and monitoring gardens. Forty-eight primary schools were selected, with 24 having SKGs and 24 serving as controls; 1,152 children aged 6–12 years were chosen through stratified sampling. The AOAC 2012 methods were used to determine the micronutrient content of vegetables at the University of Rwanda laboratories. Nurses assessed nutritional status using the WHO 2007 protocols. Mixed-effects regression models were used to account for household factors. Schools with SKGs cultivated an average of 8.4 ± 2.1 fruit and vegetable species (mean ± SD), yielding 18.2 kg per student annually, with Season A contributing 62.4% of the yield. Some SKGs had no harvest from June to August. Analyses revealed high nutrient levels: amaranth leaves contained 7.8 ± 0.6 mg iron/100 g FW; carrots had 8,274 ± 624 µg beta-carotene/100 g FW. Vegetables from the gardens provided per lunch: vitamin C 51.8% of the DRI; folate 28.9% of the DRI; provitamin A 37.4% of the DRI; iron 22.6% of the DRI; zinc 14.3% of the DRI. Children in SKG schools exhibited lower rates of stunting (27.3% vs. 38.6%; aOR 0.59, p < 0.001), wasting (8.1% vs. 12.4%; aOR 0.62; p = 0.003), underweight (18.4% vs. 27.2%; aOR 0.61; p < 0.001), and plate-waste (8.3% vs. 18.7%; p < 0.001). The annual cost was USD 4.80 per pupil, with a BCR of 3.2:1. SKGs were associated with substantially higher micronutrient adequacy of school meals and lower prevalence of adverse indicators of nutritional status in Rwanda’s most food-insecure district (cross-sectional design; causality cannot be inferred). It is recommended to integrate SKGs into the national Home-Grown School Feeding Program, with garden coordinators and infrastructure for the dry season. This model could be applied to similar districts in Burundi, Uganda, and DR Congo.