Kitchen Garden VS Home Garden: A Short Course on Integrated Home Garden Management

The home garden is now a proven approach to improving family nutrition and household resilience to climate change. It has also been found to be successful in reducing economic vulnerability of resource-poor households through the sales of surplus products. Hence, it is integrated into the regular extension programme of Nepal government and is being implemented in 20 districts of the country with possible expansion.

LI-BIRD in association with GrowInnova organized a short course on ‘Home garden’ in Pokhara from 12 to 14 September 2017. The key participants were senior and mid-level managers and officers from Peace Corps Nepal; YES Nepal, Achham; TCDF Bardiya and CBODC, Kailali including Sabal and Local Crop Project of LI-BIRD.

The training was aimed to build the capacity of development professionals on integrating necessary components of homestead agriculture with low-cost management principles to improving family nutrition and household resilient to climate change. The course was coordinated by Mr. Purushottam Khatiwada, an agriculture expert, and Team Leader of Home Garden Phase IV, LI-BIRD. Some of the sessions were facilitated by other technical experts of LI-BIRD and GrowInnova including Mr. Dhan Bahadur Rana, Senior Plant Protection Officer of  Regional Plant Protection Laboratory, Pokhara who facilitated a session on the principles and practices of Integrated Pest Management (IPM).

The course highlighted the Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Plan (2013-17) of Nepal government followed by earmarked food and nutrition security issues of Nepal as stated in Agriculture Development Strategy (ADS) 2015-2035. Through interactive sessions, group activities and field visit, the participants were oriented on key features of a home garden with the integration of CSA approach and gender friendly initiatives in order to reduce the drudgery of women farmers. The visit was taken to Teen Kanya farmer group at Upallo Saple village of Madi Rural Municipality and Begnas of Pokhara Lekhnath Metropolitan City where the participants had the opportunity to directly interact with the farmer communities and to observe farmer adopted practices.

Testimonials

“We would like to thank GrowInnova and LI-BIRD for organizing this course to non-technical professionals like us. The training helped us to learn more technical aspects of the home garden in some ways. The training could have included more practical skills and I wish we could even practice model home garden in the future.”

 

 

 

– Alka Verma, Regional Manager, Peace Corps

 

“Thanks to the training, we have a clear understanding of the fundamentals of home garden and kitchen garden. We had an opportunity to learn a lot from the field visit as well. We now will be able to guide the communities on managing their home gardens. “

 

 

 

–  Jaya Bahadur Mahara, CEO, Yes Nepal

 

“This training helped us to learn the difference between kitchen garden and home garden which we thought were as synonymous. Gender friendly tools to reduce the workload of women farmers was observed as an integral part of the home garden. As women play a key role in managing home garden there is a need of incorporating more such gender friendly initiatives.”

 

 

 

–  Anuja Lamsal KC, Regional Manager, Peace Corps