Presto takes hydroponics programme to Marabella Primary

Presto is ex­pand­ing its school hy­dro­pon­ics pro­gramme, tak­ing its agri­cul­tur­al and en­tre­pre­neur­ship ini­tia­tive to Mara­bel­la Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School, as the com­pa­ny seeks to equip pupils with prac­ti­cal farm­ing and busi­ness skills.

The lat­est ex­pan­sion, launched last Thurs­day, al­so saw Su­per­Pharm do­nate two bench­es made from re­cy­cled ma­te­ri­als, ex­tend­ing a cor­po­rate part­ner­ship be­yond re­tail and in­to com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment.

The ini­tia­tive at­tract­ed the sup­port of Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath, who linked the pro­gramme to the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion’s in­creased em­pha­sis on prac­ti­cal agri­cul­tur­al learn­ing in schools and the role of Agri­cul­tur­al Sci­ence in the as­sess­ment frame­work as­so­ci­at­ed with the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment, which is to be rein­tro­duced as the CAC Con­tin­u­ous As­sess­ment Com­po­nent.

Dowlath wel­comed the con­tri­bu­tion, point­ing to the im­por­tance of giv­ing pupils op­por­tu­ni­ties to ap­ply what they learn in the class­room through prac­ti­cal agri­cul­tur­al ac­tiv­i­ties.

The pro­gramme, how­ev­er, goes be­yond teach­ing chil­dren how to grow food. Presto wants pupils to learn how to turn pro­duc­tion in­to a small busi­ness, sell their har­vest and gen­er­ate in­come for their schools.

Jean-Luc Mout­tet, Agos­ti­ni Group Chief Growth and De­vel­op­ment Of­fi­cer, de­scribed the hy­dro­pon­ics project as a long-term in­vest­ment in schools rather than a one-off cor­po­rate do­na­tion.

“The school hy­dro­pon­ics pro­gramme is de­signed for long-term con­ti­nu­ity rather than a one-time do­na­tion,” Mout­tet de­clared.

“Be­yond teach­ing agri­cul­tur­al con­cepts, it em­pow­ers stu­dents with en­tre­pre­neur­ial skills, teach­ing them how to sell pro­duce and man­age a small busi­ness.”

He said the com­pa­ny’s am­bi­tion was to reach a stage where pupils could sell the pro­duce grown at their schools and es­tab­lish a de­pend­able fundrais­ing stream to ad­dress school needs.

“We want to get to a point where stu­dents can sell the pro­duce they have grown at the school, cre­at­ing a re­li­able fundrais­ing av­enue to meet school needs.”

The Mara­bel­la project in­cludes a Presto Hy­dro­pon­ics Gar­den Sys­tem, ed­u­ca­tion­al sig­nage and im­prove­ments to the school en­vi­ron­ment. These in­clude the do­nat­ed bench­es, grounds main­te­nance, re­paint­ing and gen­er­al fa­cil­i­ty up­keep.

The two re­cy­cled-ma­te­r­i­al bench­es were sup­plied by Su­per­Pharm, re­flect­ing the com­pa­nies’ shared sus­tain­abil­i­ty ob­jec­tives and grow­ing com­mer­cial re­la­tion­ship.

Their col­lab­o­ra­tion pre­vi­ous­ly ex­tend­ed in­to the re­tail sec­tor through the first Presto Hy­brid Store at South Park, which in­tro­duced a Presto Fresh ex­pe­ri­ence with­in a Su­per­Pharm lo­ca­tion.

The school project takes that part­ner­ship in­to a dif­fer­ent space, us­ing cor­po­rate re­sources to sup­port en­vi­ron­men­tal aware­ness, food pro­duc­tion and prac­ti­cal ed­u­ca­tion.

Presto’s hy­dro­pon­ics ini­tia­tive be­gan in Jan­u­ary 2023, when its Ari­ma Mar­ket com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing neigh­bour­ing Ari­ma Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry School.

Since then, the pro­gramme has ex­pand­ed to schools in Arou­ca, Mon­trose, Mal­oney and El So­cor­ro, with Mara­bel­la be­com­ing its lat­est lo­ca­tion.

The ex­pan­sion gives more pupils ex­po­sure to food pro­duc­tion and agri­cul­tur­al tech­niques while in­tro­duc­ing them to the com­mer­cial pos­si­bil­i­ties of grow­ing and sell­ing pro­duce.