Relationship between home garden ownership and the consumption of fruits and vegetables

OBJECTIVE

This study assessed the extent to which access to home gardens associate with the frequency of fruit and vegetable (FV) consumption.

SETTING

The study was carried out in fifty rural communities in Northern Ghana where food insecurity and malnutrition including micronutrient deficiencies are prevalent.

DESIGN

A community-based comparative analytical cross-sectional study.

PARTICIPANTS

A sample of 847 randomly selected rural households.

RESULTS

The proportion of households that consumed FV at least 3 d in a week was 45 %. Members in households who owned a home garden were 1·5 times more likely to consume FV at least 3 d in a week (adjusted OR (AOR) = 1·46 (95 % CI 1·06-2·0)), compared with their counterparts who had no home gardens. Furthermore, households in which mothers had a positive attitude towards FV consumption were 1·6 times more likely to consume FV (AOR = 1·63 (95 % CI 1·17-2·27)) compared with mothers who were less positive.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results suggest that food and nutrition policy measures that promote home gardens can improve consumption of diversified diets including FV among vulnerable rural households in Northern Ghana. Additionally, households with lower income may benefit from nutrition behaviour change communication campaigns directed towards increasing a positive attitude to FV intake.

Climate change in the Catalan Pyrenees intersects with socioeconomic factors to shape crop diversity and management

Most studies on climate change's impacts on agriculture focus on modeling techniques based on large-scale meteorological data, while few have investigated how farmer's perception of climate change's impacts can affect crop diversity and crop management practices, especially in industrialized contexts. To fill this gap, we conducted 24 semi-structured interviews in a study site located in the Catalan Pyrenees. Our results show for the first time in an industrialized context that farmers perceive multiple interrelated climate change impacts on local agroecosystems. For instance, snowfall and freeze events have decreased, which respondents associated with the increase of pests and diseases affecting both wild flora and cultivated plants. Similarly, changes in precipitation patterns lead to a perceived decrease in useful rain for agriculture. Farmers are also reporting changes in their management practices, such as increased irrigation or use of pesticides, which respond to these climatic factors but also to changes in the crops that are cultivated. Crop diversity is in decline in the area both at the species and landrace levels, especially in rainfed fields. This is mainly driven by socioeconomic factors such as agricultural abandonment or access to commercial seeds, although climate change factors such as increased pests or decreased rainfall can have an impact. Despite the crop diversity losses found, many landraces have been maintained, mainly due to their cultural value, and also new crop species have been introduced, which are now viable due to the increase in temperature. Although we focused on a specific case study, we found several trends that are also present in other contexts. Therefore, the results of this research are relevant at a global scale since they show that climate change is affecting mountain agroecosystems in industrialized contexts and may affect more drastically both agrobiodiversity and crop management practices in agroecosystems worldwide.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13593-022-00806-3.

Medicinal plants cultivated in urban home gardens in Heredia, Costa Rica

BACKGROUND

Urban ethnobotanical research in Costa Rica is rather rare and home gardens are poorly studied so far. Investigating their biodiversity is crucial in gathering knowledge on the uses of this particular flora, especially related to the owners' health. This study therefore explores the diversity and knowledge of medicinal plants of private garden owners from three different urban neighborhoods in Heredia, Costa Rica, an thus far understudied area.

METHODS

Semi-structured interviews (n = 61) were conducted with garden owners in three socioeconomically different urban neighborhoods (Central Heredia, Maria Auxiliadora and Bernardo Benavides). Information was collected about medicinal plants cultivated in the garden, treatments, plant part used and mode of administration. All species were identified and their geographical origin was determined. This information was then compared with the available regional and local (ethno)pharmacopoeias to detect possible newly documented uses.

RESULTS

The majority or 90% of garden owners who also held knowledge on medicinal plants species were women (n = 30) of all ages (between 26 and 85 years old). A list of 27 species of medicinal plants was obtained from the participants of three urban neighborhoods. In Central Heredia, 74% (n = 20) of the total species were present, in Maria Auxiliadora 33% (n = 9) and in Bernardo Benavides 56% (n = 15). Most plant species were used by the participants to treat respiratory problems (11 spp.), hair and skin problems (9 spp.) and digestive disorders (8 spp.). Some plants were used to treat multiple ailments (10 spp.). About a third of all species (n = 8) were used by the participants to treat disorders that were not indicated in the regional and local pharmacopoeias. More specifically, Aloe saponaria, Blechum pyramidatum, Costus scaber, Impatiens walleriana, Lippia alba, Tradescantia zebrina, Psidium friedrichsthalianum and Solenostemon scutellarioides used for medicinal purposes by the participants were not found in the above-mentioned resources.

CONCLUSIONS

The present study provides new information about the use of medicinal plants in a thus far understudied urban area in Costa Rica. We documented new medicinal uses for several plants listed in the regional and local pharmacopoeias as well as for plants not previously reported in an urban environment. In general, there is little information about the types of plants used for medicinal purposes in urban ecosystems in Costa Rica. Although the country has a high endemic diversity of plants, many exotic medicinal plant species were introduced by the Spaniards during the colonization and by Afro-Costa Rican descendants. The present results thus show how the diversity of the medicinal plants used by these garden owners' confirms a socioeconomic gradient and reflects both Costa Rica's colonial history as well as the current epidemiological profile of the country. These findings underline the need for more ethnobotanical research in urban areas in Costa Rica.

"We used to get food from the garden." Understanding changing practices of local food production and consumption in small island states

Many Small Island Developing States (SIDS) lead global rates in obesity and non-communicable chronic diseases (NCDs). Drivers for this are complex and include lack of food sovereignty, evidenced by an increasing reliance on cheap nutrient-poor food imports and a focus on export orientated cash crop production for much local agriculture. To better inform SIDS' policy goals of improving nutrition through increased local food production, we explored in two SIDS current practices of food production and consumption. Teams of researchers from the two main regional universities conducted 28 focus groups in Fiji in the Pacific and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in the Caribbean with rural and urban communities of different socio-economic or land-owning status. In both countries home gardens were still common, valued as providing staple foods to households and contributing to health and livelihoods. Yet social changes had been experienced over the life course and across generations, such as increased purchase of foods, consumption of processed and often imported foods, and fast foods. While participants associated local foods with better nutrition and health outcomes than imported foods, some local foods were also acknowledged as unhealthy (e.g. locally produced tinned products, pesticide contaminated fresh produce). Finally, as food and related health advice moves globally, crossing national boundaries, and through formal and informal channels, local experiences can be confusing and contested. We suggest the need to understand temporal and spatial aspects of social practices, as social practices and their meaning change over time, travel globally and are experienced locally. To enhance and support re-localising food to counteract unhealthy consumption of ultra-processed, shop-bought, often imported foods, it is vital to understand these lived experiences of changes and resulting uncertainties, and to explicitly build on the longstanding positive relationships that people continue to express about home gardens and local food.

The Past in the Present: What our Ancestors Taught us about Surviving Pandemics

Amidst the recent threat of COVID-19, home gardens have surged in popularity as seed companies and nurseries find it challenging to keep their supplies fully stocked. The victory garden movement that emerged during WWII has today re-emerged as COVID victory gardens. Yet, the global changes and cognitive shifts associated with COVID-19 have differential impacts. The narrative of COVID victory gardens depoliticizes urban agriculture. It is blind to its long history in marginalized, oppressed, and displaced communities where home gardens have always been part of a struggle for identity, autonomy, and self- and communal-determination. I argue the blindness embedded in the narrative of COVID victory gardens violates our “food-related obligations,” which are our responsibilities to ourselves, our food, and each other. Silencing how communities of color have historically grown food in pursuit of dignity disregards how home gardens in communities of color are not merely a reactionary response to crisis but part of a historical legacy whereby people of color have grown food for generations to create and recreate sustainable ways of living that validate their cultures, knowledges, and ways of being.

Homegarden diversity and food security in southern Mexico

Home gardens are recognised in the literature for their contribution to food security, yet the process by which agrobiodiversity and household characteristics mediate this relationship is less well understood. This paper contributes to fill this research gap by drawing on a multi-site case study in the Yucatán region in Mexico. By applying regression analysis, the significance of the association between home garden diversity and food security is confirmed. Plant diversity is found to have a positive association with food consumption scores and the frequency of vegetable intakes. The number of animals used for food purposes is also found to have positive and significant associations with food consumption scores and frequency of meat intakes. However, the dimension and the significance of these positive associations were found to vary among communities and quantiles of the distribution of food security measures. In the households studied, younger individuals and better-educated people, males and Spanish speakers were more likely to engage in jobs in urban areas. Engagement in urban jobs was found to involve complementarities with the overall plant diversity of home gardens, but also trade-offs with the diversity of vegetables and other herbs used for food purposes and with the abundance of animals raised for food purposes.

Home gardening and urban agriculture for advancing food and nutritional security in response to the COVID-19 pandemic

Despite a 2.3% increase in world cereal production in 2019 over 2018, the number of people facing severe food insecurity may double from 135 million in January 2020 to 265 million by the end of 2020. The problem of food and nutritional insecurity is severe in urban centers, where the global population is projected to increase (%/year) by 1.84, 1.63, and 1.44 between 2015 to 2020, 2020 to 2025, and 2025 to 2030, and it will increase overall from 54% in 2016 to 60% by 2030. The number of megacities (>10 million people) will increase from 34 in 2015 to 41 by 2030. The COVID-19 pandemic has aggravated food insecurity in urban centers because of the disruption in the food supply chain, aggravation of the physical and economic barriers that restrict access to food, and the catastrophic increase in food waste because of labor shortages. Thus, there is a need to adopt more resilient food systems, reduce food waste, and strengthen local food production. Enhancing availability at the household and community levels through home gardening and urban agriculture is an important strategy. Food production within the cities include small land farming in households, local community gardens, indoor and rooftop gardens, vertical farming, etc. Home gardening can play an important role in advancing food and nutritional security during and after the COVD-19 pandemic, while also strengthening the provisioning of numerous ecosystem services (i.e., plant biodiversity, microclimate, water runoff, water quality, human health). However, risks of soil contamination by heavy metals must be addressed.

Home gardens as a predictor of enhanced dietary diversity and food security in rural Myanmar

Background

Home gardens have been found to improve food security and dietary diversity in a wide range of settings. However, there is a need to place home gardens within the larger food and nutrition system landscapes that shape the construction of household diets. Myanmar offers a unique opportunity to study these research questions, given the decades of political isolation, high levels of food insecurity and poor nutrition levels.

Methods

The aim of our paper is to use household survey data from three distinctive agro-ecological settings in rural Myanmar to empirically analyse the role of home gardens in influencing household food insecurity and dietary diversity. Our analysis is based on unique survey data conducted in rural Myanmar. The sample includes 3230 rural households from three States/Districts (Magway, Ayeyarwady and Chin). Using information on two dimensions of food security, a series of variables capturing a household’s self-reported food security status and coping strategies when food is not available; and a measure of household’s dietary diversity based on 24-h recall data, we empirically estimate a household’s probability of being food insecure and the diversity of their diets.

Results

There are statistically significant associations between access to home gardens and measures of food security and improved dietary diversity. In particular, for landless households, the ownership of home gardens/ fruits and vines is statistically significant and is associated with a 6.6 percentage points lower probability of a household having to change their diet, and a 7.9 percentage points lower probability of being in hunger.

Conclusions

From a policy perspective, our results show that promoting home gardens among vulnerable households can improve food security and dietary diversity among vulnerable rural households in Myanmar.

A comprehensive dataset on cultivated and spontaneously growing vascular plants in urban gardens

This article summarizes the data of a survey of vascular plants in 85 urban gardens of the city of Zurich, Switzerland. Data was acquired by two sampling methods: (i) a floristic inventory of entire garden lots based on repeated garden visits, including all vegetation periods; and (ii) vegetation relevés on two plots of standardized size (10 m²) per garden during the summer. We identified a total of 1081 taxa and report the origin status, i.e., whether a taxon is considered native or alien to Switzerland. Furthermore, the origin of a plant or garden population was estimated for each taxon and garden: each taxon in each garden was classified as being either cultivated or spontaneously growing. For each garden, the number of all native, cultivated, and spontaneously growing plant species is given, along with additional information, including garden area, garden type and the landscape-scale proportion of impermeable surface within a 500-m radius. The dataset is related to the research note entitled "Research Note: Self-reported habitat heterogeneity predicts plant species richness in urban gardens" [1]. It is also linked to a comprehensive dataset on biotic and abiotic soil data and as well as to a dataset on soil-surface dwelling and flying arthropods [2-6].

Higher agrobiodiversity is associated with improved dietary diversity, but not child anthropometric status, of Mayan Achí people of Guatemala

OBJECTIVE

Child undernutrition remains one of the greatest challenges for public health nutrition in rural areas in developing countries. Interventions aiming to increase and conserve agrobiodiversity seem to be promising alternatives to improve child nutrition. However, the existing literature on these interventions is not conclusive about their effectiveness in combating child undernutrition. We tested the hypothesis that 'higher agrobiodiversity is associated with greater dietary diversity and better anthropometric status' in rural Guatemala.Design/Setting/SubjectsIn the summer of 2016, we conducted a cross-sectional study with a sample of 154 children (6-60 months). We conducted dietary recalls and structured interviews, measured children's weight and height, and visited food production systems (Milpas, home gardens, coffee plantations). Crop species richness, nutritional functional diversity, dietary diversity scores and anthropometric status were calculated.

RESULTS

Higher food self-sufficiency, nutritional functional diversity and dietary diversity scores were positively correlated with higher crop and animal species richness. Contrarily, remoteness to the local market was negatively correlated with dietary diversity scores. However, higher dietary diversity scores were not correlated with better child anthropometric status. Better child anthropometric status was positively correlated with improved sanitary conditions and maternal education; and negatively correlated with large household size and frequent child morbidity.

CONCLUSIONS

Agricultural diversification could diversify diets, increase nutrient availability and improve child anthropometry. However, these interventions need to be accompanied by sanitation improvements, family planning, nutritional education and women's empowerment to strengthen their positive effect on diet and nutrition.

Functional diversity of home gardens and their agrobiodiversity conservation benefits in Benin, West Africa

BACKGROUND

Understanding the functional diversity of home gardens and their socio-ecological determinants is essential for mainstreaming these agroforestry practices into agrobiodiversity conservation strategies. This paper analyzed functional diversity of home gardens, identified the socio-ecological drivers of functions assigned to them, and assessed the agrobiodiversity benefits of home gardens functions.

METHODS

Using data on occurring species in home garden (HG) and functions assigned to each species by the gardeners, the study combined clustering and discriminant canonical analyses to explore the functional diversity of 360 home gardens in Benin, West Africa. Next, multinomial logistic models and chi-square tests were used to analyze the effect of socio-demographic characteristics of gardeners (age, gender, and education level), agro-ecological zones (humid, sub-humid, and semi-arid), and management regime (single and multiple managers) on the possession of a functional type of home gardens. Generalized linear models were used to assess the effect of the functions of home gardens and the determinant factor on their potential in conserving agrobiodiversity.

RESULTS

Seven functional groups of home gardens, four with specific functions (food, medicinal, or both food and medicinal) and three with multiple functions (more than two main functions), were found. Women owned most of home gardens with primarily food plant production purpose while men owned most of home gardens with primarily medicinal plant production purposes. Finding also showed that multifunctional home gardens had higher plant species diversity. Specifically, crops and crop wild relatives occurred mainly in home gardens with food function while wild plant species were mostly found in home gardens with mainly medicinal function.

CONCLUSIONS

Home gardening is driven by functions beyond food production. These functions are mostly related to direct and extractive values of home gardens. Functions of home gardens were gendered, with women mostly involved in home food gardens, and contribute to maintenance of crops and crop wild relatives while men were mostly home medicinal gardeners and contribute to the maintenance of wild plant species in home gardens. Although multiple functional home gardens were related to higher plant diversity, there was no guarantee for long-term maintenance of plant species in home gardens.

Gendered vulnerabilities and grassroots adaptation initiatives in home gardens and small orchards in Northwest Mexico

With the retreat of the state under neoliberalism, the lack of (or negligible) government and non-governmental support reasserts grassroots initiatives as a global-change strategy. A feminist political ecology approach and the concept of adverse inclusion were used to facilitate an analysis of social differences shaping local-level adaptive responses. Adaptive responses of small farmers in the border village of San Ignacio, Sonora, Mexico, who are increasingly vulnerable to climate change, water scarcity, and changing labor markets were studied. Gender differences in production sites translate into diverse vulnerabilities and adaptive strategies. Local capacities and initiatives should be a focus of research and policy to avoid viewing women and men as passive in the face of global change. The dynamic strategies of San Ignacio women and men in home gardens and small orchards hold lessons for other regions particularly related to adaptation to climate change via agrobiodiversity, water resource management, and diversified agricultural livelihoods.