Householders Attitude, Preferences, and Willingness to Have Home Garden at Time of Pandemics

The value of home gardens has become more apparent among tenants forced into isolation in difficult and uncertain times arising since the COVID-19 pandemic started at the beginning of 2020. While gardens make a significant contribution to the social and ecological environment of cities, most studies have focused on public green spaces. Investigating householder preferences for gardens during and after the mandatory lockdown period in the UAE is required. The main objective of this study is to analyze the householder’s attitude, preferences, and willingness to have home gardens during the pandemic and after. The data were collected via an online survey of randomly selected respondents. A logistic econometrical model was utilized to analyze the factors affecting respondent preferences regarding having a garden. According to the results, the probability of having a garden increases among respondents who produce some crops, have attained Msc/PhD. level, a backyard, and a larger space to cultivate. It decreases among those who are married, find it hard to take care of a garden, and face a weed problem. In conclusions, it is highly recommended for householders to have home gardens, which can provide a quality lifestyle and enhance leisure time during the pandemic and after.

Ethnobotanical Wealth of Home Gardens

The use of ethnomedicinal plants of home gardens has played an important role in treating minor illnesses related to physical and psychological wellbeing among rural folks. Local healers often use plants from their home garden or nearby forest. In this chapter, the traditional uses of medicinal plants using various tools with sample data have been used to facilitate ethnobotanical research on home gardens. Samples measuring the relative importance of species through quantitative analysis are tabulated. These tools, if applied during in-situ data collection, would help generate reliable information on characteristics of home gardens and medicinal plants. Conservation of medicinal plants from the perspective of home gardening is important. To document how medicinal plants are used to treat different diseases, their use value and ethical considerations would be significant for bioprospecting of medicinal plants and protecting intellectual right of the associated traditional knowledge.

Biodiversity and Impacts of Climate Change in Home Gardens

Home garden is a complex multi-functional land use system that combines multiple farming components of the homestead and provides environmental services, household needs, and employment and income generation opportunities to the households. Predicted climate changes have serious implications for crop and livestock yields particularly in tropical regions. Home garden may act as a cushion to the adverse climate shocks. There is dearth of in-depth study of home garden ecosystem in India. The authors have selected 100 households in Garhbeta-1 block, which is in the dry zone in the district of Paschim Medinipur in West Bengal, India for the study. The main objectives of the chapter include (1) identification of the key characteristics of the home garden, (2) assessing biodiversity in home gardens, (3) identifying the pattern of climate change from the household perceptions and the problems in home garden, and (4) the changes made in the home gardens.

Climate Change and Diseases of Plants and Animals

Home Garden is a complex sustainable land use system that combines multiple farming components of the homestead and provides environmental services, household needs, and employment and income generation opportunities to the households. Predicted climate changes have serious implications for crop and livestock yields particularly in tropical regions. Home garden may act as a cushion to the adverse climate shocks. There is dearth of in-depth study of home garden ecosystem in India. Authors selected 100 households in Garhbeta-1 block, which is in the dry zone in the district of Paschim Medinipur in West Bengal for this study. The main objectives of this chapter include: (a) identifying key characteristics of the home garden, (b) identifying the pattern of climate change from the household perceptions and the changes made in the home gardens. (c) identifying different diseases of plants and animals in home gardens in the study area (d) managing diseases of plants in home gardens, (e) identifying different problems/ constraints in home.

Pemberdayaan komunitas peduli lingkungan melalui PKM Kubermas tahap 1 di Universitas Khairun

Kubermas (Community Work Lecture) is one of the intracurricular programs organized by Khairn University. The form of activity is in the form of service activities to implement the Tri Dharma of Higher Education. In phase 1, the main program of this Kubermas PKM activity is community empowerment to carry out the conservation of spices and herbs in home gardens. The activity location is on Campus 1 of FKIP, Akehuda sub-district, North Ternate city, and RT 14, Kayu Merah sub-district, South Ternate city. The objectives of the Kubermas PKM are 1) to form a community of people who have the sensitivity to plant and care for and utilize herbs and spices in the yard of the house as a conservation effort; 2) provide direct experience to students participating in Kubermas in community empowerment programs at Kubermas locations. The method of service is community participation and training. The results of this community service are public knowledge about the conservation of home garden spices and herbs and knowledge of the use of home garden spices and herbs in the manufacture of Hand Sanitizermade from herbs and Rorano during the pandemic. Students have direct experience of community assistance methods and the use of home gardens.

Beekeeping promotes the traditional home-garden conservation in Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, agrobiodiversity is managed through indigenous knowledge of rural communities, where the selection of plant species varies depending on the sociocultural practices and local economic needs. Traditional beekeeping has been practiced by millions of households in rural Ethiopia over a long historical period. However, the contribution of beekeeping in maintaining agrobiodiversity has not been systematically assessed in the country. This study was conducted in Central and Western Ethiopia to assess and compare traditional conservation practices, as well as the diversity and abundance of vegetation found within home-garden maintained by beekeepers and non-beekeepers. The results of the study showed that beekeepers raditionally retain more remnants of trees and shrubs in their home-garden to favor sustainable beekeeping, compared to non-beekeepers who instead are more likely to expand crop production. The mean number of floral species in beekeeper and non-beekeeper home-gardens was 22.8 ±3.2 and 14.2 ± 2.1, respectively. The higher species richness of bee visited plants in beekeepers’ home-gardens may be associated with traditional ecological knowledge accumulated by beekeepers over the years to maximize harvests of bee products. We therefore recommend the integration of ekeeping to other conservation interventions, such as community forestry, watersheds and protected areas as sustainable conservation practices. We suggest that necessary financial, technological, and extensional support should be enhanced to align improved v to any conservation efforts.

COVID-19 Changed Human-Nature Interactions across Green Space Types: Evidence of Change in Multiple Types of Activities from the West Bank, Palestine

COVID-19 stay-at-home orders impacted the way humans interacted with built and natural environments. Previous research on the human use of green spaces during the pandemic, largely conducted in a Western context, has found increased use of home gardens and urban green spaces, and decreased visitation to conservation areas. We explored changes in residents’ outdoor nature-associated activities during the pandemic in the West Bank, Palestine. We used a web-based survey to ask residents about their passive, interactive, and extractive outdoor activities that take place in home gardens, urban parks, and natural areas. Overall, our 1278 respondents spent less time with family and friends and more time alone. We found differences in respondent’s participation in activities both between green space types and between activity types. Participation in passive appreciation of nature activities increased for home gardens but decreased in urban parks and natural areas. Interactive activities, including cultivation, increased for all areas, while extractive activities stayed the same or decreased. Only in natural areas did respondents’ demographics explain changes in activity participation rates after the pandemic. Residents’ increased time alone raises concerns about mental health. The differences we observed in activity participation across green space types highlights the importance of looking across different types of natural spaces and different activities in the same setting, as well as examining non-Western settings.

Socio-economic factors affecting home gardens as a livelihood strategy in rural areas of the Eastern Cape province, South Africa

Home gardens have been identified as one of the possible ways of producing food and offer great solutions to some of the issues surrounding poverty alleviation and improving food security in rural areas. However, home gardens' potential as a living strategy has not been recognized and affected by many factors. Therefore, the study examines socio-economic factors influencing home gardens as a living strategy in rural areas of the Eastern Cape Province. The study was conducted in the Eastern Cape Province rural areas, where data was collected from 200 households using snowball sampling. The study made use of descriptive and logit regression models for analysis. The study results reveal that female households actively participated in home gardens with an average of 46 years. Households were landowners with an average farm size of 3 Ha and owning farm assets. Home gardens contributed immensely to households by providing food for home consumption and generating income from crops and vegetables. The study concludes that Socio-economic factors were the factors influencing home gardens as the living strategy in rural areas. Therefore, the study recommends the provision of external personnel in rural areas to assist home gardeners in improving their productivity.

Utilization of Home Gardens as a Community Empowerment-Based Edible Landscape to Combat Stunting

Home gardens as a community empowerment-based edible landscape can be used as a strategy for sustainable and resilient urban development. The objective of this research is to identify (a) benefits and challenges of home gardens as community empowerment-based edible landscape, and (b) the socio-cultural, economic, and environmental factors in the utilization of home gardens in Tomohon, Denpasar and Solo. The researchers conduct literature reviews and observation for one month. The benefits of a home garden are a source of various food and traditional medicine, a place of worship, supporting conservation, ameliorating the microclimate, improve health, education, recreational and aesthetic functions, strengthen social status, increase income and ties. The challenges are to overcome constraints such as (a) lack of knowledge, skill, advisory services, (b) limited access to farming inputs, and so on; and to take advantage of opportunities such as easy access, easy control of composition, products quality and quantity, and so on. Some strategies are proposed. Socio-cultural, economic and environmental factors that influence the home garden are grouped as internal factors (i.e. size, owner’s economic condition, perception, knowledge, skill, hobby, preference and consumption pattern, allocated time and energy) and external factors (i.e. regulation, culture and agreement, and environmental conditions).