an adequate and stable supply of diverse food crops as well as enhancing their nutritional
quality. On-farm management of diversified agricultural plant genetic resources is a priority
for increased agricultural investment in the biodiversity management as a whole (Johns and
Sthapit, 2004). Home gardens offer a strategic unit for increasing and maintaining functional
agricultural biodiversity. Home gardens are the major sources of family nutrition; therefore
their values for household dietary diversity and health are well recognized. Home gardens
combined with nutrition education can be a viable strategy for improving household
nutritional security for at-risk populations, particularly women and children (Kumar and Nair,
2004). In poor households, access to nutritious foods largely depends on what they produce
in home gardens (Callens and Gallagher 2003). Home gardens are significant sources of
minerals and nutrients (Asfaw and Woldu, 1997) and they produce a wide variety of crops
and often include micronutrient-rich vegetables and fruits, spices, medicinal plants and even
animals (Callens and Gallagher 2003). A comprehensive review conducted by Torquebiau
(1992) revealed that dietary supplies from home gardens accounted for 3-44% of total
calorie and 4-32% of the total protein intake.
Nepal produces around 30% of the total fruits and vegetable requirements of the country
(HKI, 2001). The home garden alone supplies 60% of the total fruits and vegetables
consumed by the families (Gautam et al, 2004). Home gardens are rich in agro-biodiversity.
Gautam et al (2004) in their survey found that up to 87 species are grown in a small home
garden of 0.0017 to 0.5 ha by the farmers in Nepal. As home gardens are rich in the
biodiversity and are the major sources of family nutrition supply, they should be considered
viable and most functional sources of the family micronutrient and other nutrition supply.
Home gardens, therefore, have been identified as the way to combat micronutrient
deficiencies (HKI, 2001; Johns and Sthapit, 2004).
Many governmental and civil society organisations are promoting home gardens in Nepal in
different ways. So far, the development programmes focussed on nutrition tend to promote
the indiscriminate introduction of exotic and/or improved species and varieties of vegetables
without reference to people’s actual needs (Shrestha et al., 2004). This paper is trying to
identify the actual temporal and spatial gaps in the supply of diversified diets from home
gardens to the family. To assess the existing situation of diet supply from the home gardens
and to identify the gap periods where there is limited supply of diverse nutrition through
home garden plant genetic resources, a nutritional calendar was prepared. The nutritional
calendar not only explains the existing situation on the supply of different diet from home
gardens but it also serves as a basis for the introduction of different plant species to improve
the composition of home gardens.
METHODS
The home garden project is implemented in four contrasting (both from ecological and socio-
economic settings point of view) sites, viz., Panchkanya of Ilam (Eastern high hill), Gaurigunj
of Jhapa (Eastern terai), Durbardevisthan of Gulmi (Western mid-hills) and Dudhrakshya of
Rupandehi (Western terai). The nutritional calendar was derived for all four sites from the
data collected during the baseline survey and PRA studies so as to offer general indicators
of the situation of the whole village regarding the availability of different vegetable species
with their dietary values. The baseline survey revealed that there is no significant difference
(p>0.05) on home garden species composition among the different levels of economic
endowments and ethnic groups (Gautam et al, 2004). Therefore, we did not develop a
nutritional calendar for each of the ethnic and wealth categories. The methodology
followed while generating the nutrition graphs is as follows;
- Compilation of distribution of different plant species in home gardens with their time
of plantation and harvest period (as many of the home garden species are multi-
harvested). This gives the actual period of the availability of food for consumption.