global project on “Enhancing the contribution of home garden to on-farm management of
plant genetic resources and to improve the livelihood of Nepalese farmers-Nepal
component” was implemented by LI-BIRD/IPGRI in four different sites of Nepal representing
terai (Jhapa and Rupandehi districts), mid-hills (Gulmi) and high-hill (Illam district)
ecosystems.
In order to establish as home garden proper in situ conservation strategy, one of the first and
essential steps to undertake is the study of the dynamics and distribution of species diversity
in particular home gardens and throughout the system at large (Eyzaguirre and Linares
2001). Therefore, documentation of home garden plant diversity was carried out in 90 HHs
of each research site to document the diversity, local status and basic information on
use/values. In this paper we have prepared an inventory of the home garden species and
analyzed their information with reference to two different contrasting agro-geographical
regions viz. hills and terai.
METHODS
Selecting study unit
The house hold survey was conducted to explore information on home garden plant diversity
with respect to the ecological zones and different socio-economic settings. Stratified random
sampling was followed and a total of 90 households (HHs) were identified for a detailed
study in each project site. As major strata, three categories of economic endowment
(resource rich, resource medium and resource poor) and two categories of ethnic
composition (Pahadi and terai in case of terai Region, Brahmin/Chhetri and
Newar/Magar/Rai/Limbu/ Gurung/KDS in case of Hill region) were considered for the
purpose. Wealth ranking was done prior to base line survey during the PRA studies of the
selected sites (Suwal and Gautam, 2003). Site characteristics and details of methodology
used during the selection of sample home gardens of project sites were well discussed by
Gautam et al., 2004.
Data collection
Sample home gardens of four sites of the project were visited to see, record and document
the extent, distribution and diversity of species. For this purpose, individual interviews were
taken with the research home garden farmers on the basis of the format developed by the
project during the baseline study. Identification and characterization of intra-specific and
inter-specific diversity including local or vernacular names and local use-values were
documented on the basis of farmers’ information and field verification. Farmer named
varieties were later cross checked with the standard literatures for its botanical identification
(Shrestha 1998).
Data analysis
Once the data collection was completed, field data were entered using SPSS-DOS and
SPSS-Version 11.0 was used for its analysis. Home garden plant diversity was measured
through Shannon –Weaver index (H’) for species richness, Evenness index (J) and Simpson
Index (λ).
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Amount of home garden plants diversity
Although there is a range of different approaches to describe the amount of genetic diversity
present in a crop in home gardens or group of home gardens, numbers and identities of local