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.

Mapping people and influence levels

Process Net-Mapping is a participatory research approach that reveals the flows of inputs and resources, power dynamics, and challenges facing a program. With guidance from a moderator, experts involved in the program created a map that includes the different types of actors in the program. The map visualized the flow of program activities and was used to anchor discussions among participants.

For example, after the map was created, participants discussed the influence or power levels of each actor. This research technique can offer additional insights over other approaches since the map-creating process and assigning influence levels reveal the intricacies of a program’s inner workings.

Recommendations for future home garden interventions

Future home garden interventions would benefit from including instruction on easy-to-understand nutrition models and on how to make organic or natural fertilizer. A previous program in India met success with two easy-to-understand nutrition models that both encourage dietary diversity.

One is “7-din 7-ghar.” In this model, households are encouraged to grow seven different types of vegetables in seven different small vegetable beds, and then harvest and eat from each bed on different days of the week. The beauty is that it is flexible: It doesn’t have to be 7 vegetables or 7 separate garden beds; fewer would work too.

The other is “Tiranga Thali.” In this one, people are encouraged to eat foods from the three colors of the Indian flag (white, green, and saffron).

Similar models could be applied anywhere in the world. The project also met success in training households on how to make natural fertilizer called Jeevamruta. Jeevamruta is an organic manure and bio-pesticide made by fermenting cow dung, cow urine, jaggery (a traditional, unrefined sugar), pulses, flour, soil and water. The result is a natural source of nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, and other micronutrients.

Teaching farmers how to grow, eat, and rely on locally available materials to produce healthy foods at lower costs are great incentives for the wider adoption of home gardens.