Food is a basic need and should be the highest priority human right that all should be obliged and responsible to provide for all. Imagine the possibilities if the way in which the lawns of public offices in Uganda and in Africa are used is changed from purely managing grass lawns and non-edible flowers to incorporating growing of food crops.

This is even if we start first only with hospitals and healthcare facilities where it is the norm to find malnourished patients struggling to afford food. And or in which the food provided to patients is simply posho (maize meal) and beans. And yet huge public funds are spent on mowing hospital lawns and maintaining non-edible plants, primarily for aesthetic value.

Food security and nutrition security are within our means. And we can achieve them in ways that use and nurture nature. In order to reverse negative climate change humankind needs to revert back to the wisdom of our ancestors, of African-Ugandans, in this case organic farming and each of us growing some of the food that we consume.

Our front and back yards need not remain within the colonial legacy of grass lawns and non-edible flowers. Dig up parts of those grass lawns and grow food or integrate food crops within.

Let us co-exist within and with nature. Yes, that creature on the pot is the real one – it too was sunbathing. The pot is an ancient storage pot of the Iteso people of Uganda, which I inherited from my paternal grandmother (RIP). I have re-purposed it for in-door and out-door drying of the Rosemary that I grow in my front yard garden. In the solar dryer are Spear Mint leaves harvested from that which I grow in my front yard garden. And yes, that is my lettuce growing in the flower pots. I harvest as and when I want to eat some.