This story was cross-posted from the IFPRI website and was originally written by Kalle Hirvonen and Derek Headey.
Eating fruits and vegetables can help ensure adequate nutrition and reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer, and obesity. Yet, most people in lower income countries do not get the recommended daily servings of those foods, largely because they cannot afford them.
Homestead gardens can provide a way to improve diets and nutrition in developing countries. But can governments promote homestead gardening programs at scale? Can homestead gardening work in areas that lack good access to water? What role can markets play in improving diets? A recent IFPRI study published in Global Food Security assesses these questions. Based on a large survey on the adoption of a government run nationwide homestead gardening program in Ethiopia, this study is the first to examine such a large-scale program.
Led by IFPRI's Strategy Support Program in Ethiopia, the results of the study suggest that government-led efforts to promote homestead gardening are effective in communities where water is abundant. The results suggest that the most important determinant of whether a household built a garden was access to water, as measured by the number of rainy days or the time needed to fetch water during the dry season.
Given Ethiopia’s large and effective public extension system, the findings may not be exportable outside the country but suggest that government extension workers can successfully change agricultural practices under the right agro-climatic conditions.
While earlier research largely focused on distance to the market, the study found a weak association between this “market access” and the adoption of homestead gardens. Instead, the team noted that garden adoption was more common in areas with a high-quality market, suggesting that this distinction is one that may require further research.
Kalle Hirvonen is a Research Fellow with IFPRI’s Ethiopia Strategy Support Program and Development Strategy and Governance Division, based in Addis Ababa. Derek Headey is a Senior Research Fellow with IFPRI's Poverty, Health and Nutrition Division.
For the full story and more findings from the study, please see original post on the IFPRI website .
