Abstract
Homegardening has the potential to improve access to nutrient-dense foods. We evaluate the impact of a large Homestead Food Production intervention on crop species richness and homegarden management as pathway outcomes of the ‘Food and Agricultural Approaches to Reducing Malnutrition’ (FAARM) cluster‐randomized trial (NCT025‐05711) in rural North-eastern Bangladesh. Ninety-six settlements were allocated 1:1 to intervention (1337 women) and control arm (1368 women). During the three-year intervention (2015-2018) women received vegetable seeds and training in homegardening, poultry rearing, and nutrition. We assessed number and type of harvested garden crop species at baseline and every four months during and after the intervention, totalling 12 survey rounds. Impacts were measured overall and by year using mixed-effects linear regression. In its final year, the intervention increased the number of harvested vegetable species by 4.3 and total crop species by 6.3, more than double over control. We also saw sizable changes in production practices. Impacts were present in all seasons, consistent across gradients of wealth and education and maintained up to 2.5 years post-intervention when they seemed to spill over to controls. This study provides rigorous evidence that homegardening can have sustained positive impacts on year-round diversity of nutrient-rich garden crops produced by households.
Abstract from the paper’s OpenAlex record; open copy licensed cc-by. Read at the source ↗
The text the model read, with the source record’s inline markup (italics, sub- and superscripts) rendered and its character entities decoded; quote offsets refer to the raw text.
Claims 4
Claim · model-written summary
In its final year the intervention increased harvested vegetable species by 4.3.
Verbatim
e0“garden crops produced by households”
e1“In its final year, the intervention increased the number of harvested vegetable species by 4.3 and total crop species by 6.3, more than double over control”
Claim · model-written summary
In its final year the intervention increased total crop species by 6.3.
Verbatim
e0“garden crops produced by households”
e1“In its final year, the intervention increased the number of harvested vegetable species by 4.3 and total crop species by 6.3, more than double over control”
Claim · model-written summary
Impacts of the intervention on garden crops were maintained up to 2.5 years after the intervention.
Verbatim
e0“garden crops produced by households”
e2“Impacts were present in all seasons, consistent across gradients of wealth and education and maintained up to 2.5 years post-intervention”
Claim · model-written summary
The intervention caused sizable changes in homegarden production practices.
Verbatim
e0“garden crops produced by households”
e3“We also saw sizable changes in production practices”