The study indicated that children were more benefited from flower and ornamental, fruits and
medicinal plants among the studied components of home gardens This may be because
children have control over ornamental plants. Similarly, fruits and medicinal plants products
are mainly used for children purpose and all kind of benefit received from fruit and medicinal
plants are used by children for various purposes. In particular, benefits derived from all
activities except flower and ornamental plants, are equally shared by male and female in rich
category and male mostly controlled over the benefits in medium category of Gulmi. But
children in both rich and medium categories had control over the benefits of ornamental
plants. In poor categories benefit from livestock, household, vegetable, fruit, were controlled
by female and both male and female had equal control over the benefits from crop,
medicinal plant, fodder, forage and flower and ornamental production in Gulmi. In Rupandehi
area, indigenous group benefit from livestock, household production, off farm enterprises,
vegetable, fodder and forage in rich, from all activities except flower/ornamental in medium
and from livestock in poor categories were mostly controlled by male. Whereas, benefit from
fruit, medicinal plants and fodder in poor categories were mostly controlled by female and
benefit from ornamental plants controlled by children in medium category. In migrant group
benefit from crop and off farm enterprises in rich and from crop, off farm enterprises,
vegetable, fruit, fodder and forage in medium and from off farm in poor categories were
mostly controlled by men. But benefit from livestock and vegetable in rich, from
flower/ornamental in medium and from vegetable, fruit, medicinal, fodder and forage and
ornamental plants in poor categories were mostly controlled by female. However, most of the
activities mostly controlled by male and female, in some activities children were also play an
important role in control of benefits.
CONCLUSION
Different members of the households work in the home gardens. Sons and daughter, who
are old enough and do not have to go to schools any more, usually assist their parents. The
result shows that women are also the prime decision maker in the family and their
contributions to decisions in activities related to home gardens and gender who are more
involved in implementing the activities are also responsible for decision making on such
activities. One major finding from the study is that, children cannot be excluded from home
garden management activities as they have greater role than male and female in flower/
ornamental production and management activities in some categories, where as in other
activities of home gardens they have remarkable contribution and they are also more
benefited from home gardens benefits like vegetable production. From this study it can be
concluded that home gardens are not the domain of one specific gender.
Evidence form the study shows that both men and women do almost equal work on home
garden management. Role of men and women is based more on the situation of the family
rather than on ethnic values. For instance where the family had enough male members'
women did not work much in the fields, whereas where there was a lack of male members,
women worked equally side by side with the male members. Therefore, research activities
should be carried out after the detail analysis of the situation. It is also important to
understand what motivates people’s decisions about the allocation of labour and other
resources to home garden production and management activities. This depends largely on
who benefits from the intended use of the output of home garden produce and who is
responsible for those particular activities. Therefore, trainings on home garden activities
should be based on the needs of the beneficiaries and gender.
Gender is also cross cut by wealth and ecological region. Therefore, representatives and
specialised expertise need to be used as criteria for distinguishing who participates in home