Grapevine

New research reveals what can make a home garden program successful

Increasingly, home gardens—small, cultivated plots in backyards or nearby households—are gaining recognition as one of the most promising strategies to reduce malnutrition. However, not all attempts to establish home gardens are successful or able to yield the full benefits hoped for. Recent research in India's state of Odisha involved community members in identifying which elements of home gardens work and what do not.

Building on two published process evaluations, this study, published in Agriculture and Food Security, is the first evaluation of a home garden intervention that includes the participatory Process Net-Mapping technique. The technique provides additional insights over other research methods since participants identify and discuss different actors' roles and influence in a program or policy. It is a great way to identify and troubleshoot challenges.

The study revealed some challenges the program faced that hindered the adoption and continued use of home gardens. These challenges were a reliance on verbal or classroom-style training, lack of demonstration home gardens, and an absence of family support for home gardens. Other challenges included limited land and water availability, difficulty for the program's implementers to reach beneficiaries due to poor roads and mobile phone connectivity, and language barriers.

The process evaluation also identified positive outputs, outcomes and impacts on home garden production, consumption, income, health, nutrition and women's empowerment. Flexibility led to greater positive outcomes on nutrition, the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices and easy-to-understand nutrition models, and the likelihood of the intervention being sustained after the program ended.

To improve future home garden programs, the authors recommended that training includes videos, demonstrations, and site visits to model home gardens. Programs should also train several household members, such as husbands, wives, and their parents, to get buy-in from more than one household member. Given the widespread network of self-help groups in India, researchers also recommended targeting self-help group members to participate in the training sessions.