FOOD FROM DRYLAND GARDENS

AN ECOLOGICAL, NUTRITIONAL, AND SOCIAL APPROACH TO SMALL-SCALE HOUSEHOLD FOOD PRODUCTION

DAVID A. CLEVELAND & DANIELA SOLERI

CENTER FOR PEOPLE, FOOD & ENVIRONMENT                1991

Preface by James P. Grant, Executive Director, UNICEF

Household gardens are an important part of the indigenous agricultural production system in almost all developing countries. For poorer families, they typically make an important contribution to total household food intake, providing vital nutrients. Gardens also play a vital role in improving household wellbeing by providing income and savings, thus contributing to increased food security at the household level. All this has often been neglected or misunderstood by development planners. Food from Dryland Gardens will help to change this misunderstanding.

The publication of Food from Dryland Gardens is an important milestone in strengthening our understanding of and support for households in the Developing World. We, at UNICEF, are convinced that it will prove to be a key reference document for those individuals working in the fields of agriculture and nutrition. We are pleased to support its publication.

Let Us Hear From You by CPFE

The Center for People, Food and Environment (CPFE) is a non-profit organization devoted to research, education, and action for sustainable food systems. We believe that local control and self-reliance, social equity, cultural and biological diversity, and environmental conservation are essential ingredients of sustainable food systems.

Food from Dryland Gardens is the first major project of CPFE. The authors of this book are co-directors of CPFE. Organizations or individuals interested in knowing more about CPFE can write to us.

We hope that those of you who use this book will take the time to tell us what you find most helpful, and will give us your suggestions for improvements.

If you have information that is relevant, including your own reports and observations, we would appreciate hearing from you and receiving copies of written works. We have found four types of information most useful in writing this book: reports of basic or applied research relevant to dryland household gardens; reports of how people in drylands are gardening, and the impact of gardens on nutrition, income and community development; manuals for field workers in related areas such as irrigation; reports of garden projects, including brief personal narratives, giving some detailed information on assessment, implementation, and evaluation. We would be grateful for any information of this sort you could share with us. We will fully acknowledge the source if any of the information you send us is used in subsequent editions or other publications. So let us hear from you. Write to: CPFE, 344 South Third Avenue, Tucson, Arizona 85701, USA

How to Use This Book

• This book is organized into four parts: Part I (Chapters 2-4) gives an overview of gardens in development and background information important for supporting gardens; Part II: (Chapters 5-13) is about growing gardens; Part III (Chapters 14-16) discusses using the harvest from gardens; and Part IV (Chapters 17-20, plus an index) contains information on measurements, resources, and the complete list of references, some of which are annotated.

Chapter 1: Introduction

• On the outskirts of a city in northern Egypt, Hopi women in northern Arizona, inside a home compound in northern Pakistan, a slum woman in Mexico City, in the savanna of northern Ghana, people are all gardening – in the wet season, in the dry season; in cities and in rural areas.
• The crops and varieties they grow are chosen primarily from among those that have been handed down from parents and grandparents. They are adapted to climate and soils, resistant to local insects and diseases, and are easy-to-cook, good-tasting ingredients of the meals that are part of their cultural identity.
• In this book Third World does not refer to a geographical region but to a situation where communities are not in control of their own resources, and are often exploited by outside markets, organizations, or governments on which they are dependent.
• The Third World includes not only the majority of the population in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, but also many communities within the rich industrialized nations.
• Food from Dryland Gardens was written to encourage gardens that serve local needs, that are based on local knowledge and resources, and that conserve natural resources and the biological diversity of traditional crops.
• We emphasize long-term environmental and social sustainability, meaning the management of soil, water, and biological resources so that all future generations can also use them.
• To improve the well-being of the poor and hungry of the drylands their needs, desires, resources, and skills must be kept at the center of the project and they must have control over changes affecting them.
• Like other improvements, gardens promoted in this way may not produce showy and spectacular results at the beginning, but are more likely to respond to real needs, and persist and grow beyond the life of the project.

PART I: GARDENS AS A DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY

• To be sustainable, development that involves outsiders must be a cooperative venture; local people guide the process while project workers are resources. Project workers must learn to work with community members as equals, respect and support local skills and knowledge and keep in mind the ultimate goal of improving people’s well-being in a way that is both socially and environmentally sustainable.
• Industrial gardens are usually based on approaches that are inappropriate for the local situation and are not sustainable.
• Colonialism contributed to the belief still held by many today that indigenous food production expertise in the Third World is inferior and not suited to the modern world, and industrial, large-scale, capital-and resource-intensive agriculture is the only way to improve the situation.
• While development strategies like the ‘green revolution,’ which are based on an industrial agriculture model, sometimes result in increased production, they have often led to increased inequities in the Third World countries where they have been applied.
• These strategies have frequently perpetuated dependence on the industrialized nations and the international markets they control. Meanwhile, malnutrition and poverty persist as major problems.
• The assumption follows that indigenous gardens are not based on scientific principles. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. The more that is learned about indigenous food production, the more obvious it is that it is based on the same principles as Western science.
• Western agricultural science is very much under the influence of a world economic system that emphasizes maximizing production and profits. The majority of research carried out is on strategies that increase farmer dependence on the market.
• While the problems of powerlessness facing the poor in drylands can only be eliminated by addressing their social and economic roots in colonialism, global inequity, and dependency, gardens can provide immediate benefits, and most importantly, can provide those benefits in a way that contributes to the solution of the larger problems.

Chapter 2: Gardens and Nutrition in Drylands

• Good nutrition is essential for good health. Malnutrition, the lack of required nutrients, is a major problem in drylands, especially for poor households. Malnourished people are more vulnerable to disease; at the same time disease often contributes to malnutrition.
• People suffering from disease and malnutrition are not able to work as productively as healthy, well-nourished people. This increases dependence on outside help and reduces the quality of life. This can become a self-perpetuating cycle that affects a household, a community, and even a nation.
• In this book we apply the concepts of nutrition to both plants and people. In Part II we discuss the nutritional needs of plants, sources of these nutrients, and the effects of nutrient deficiencies.
• Gardens can provide nutrients, increase household income or savings which may be used to improve nutrition (Chapter 3).
• The nutritional effects of processing and preserving garden produce are discussed in Chapter 15 and the preparation of weaning foods from the garden in Chapter 16.
• There is a growing recognition that assumptions about ‘development’ and ‘progress’ in diets, lifestyle, and agriculture that are modeled on Western, industrialized countries must be carefully re-examined.
• Malnutrition is not simply a matter of inappropriate or inadequate food. It is also a consequence of policies and assumptions at the local, regional, national, and global levels that affect the production, processing, promotion, and distribution of food.

2.1 Summary

Children, sick people, and pregnant and breast-feeding women need extra nutrients to avoid becoming malnourished. Those working hard in the home, field, or factory also need extra food. Food consumption and distribution is determined not only by need, but by beliefs and traditional dietary patterns, and by patterns of control over resources in the household, the community, the nation, and the world.

Energy, protein, vitamins A, C, D, folacin, thiamine, riboflavin, and niacin, and minerals such as iron, zinc, and calcium are nutrients essential for good health – however they are often inadequate in dryland diets. Gardens are good sources for many of these nutrients.

Anti-nutrients are substances in food that are poisonous or that reduce nutritional value, and are present in all diets. Traditional processing techniques often help eliminate these.

2.2 Recommended Dietary Allowances and the Nutrient Content of Foods

Table 2.2 Rich Garden Sources of Some nutrients

2.3 Special Nutritional Needs in Drylands

2.4 Energy

2.5 Protein

2.6 Vitamins

2.7 Minerals

2.8 Fats

2.9 Fiber

2.10 Anti-Nutrients

2.11 The Effects of Gardens on Nutrition

• Gardens can make a significant contribution to solving three of the most important dryland nutritional problems: PEM of infants and children, vitamin A deficiency, and anemia resulting from lack of iron and vitamin C.
• When gardens can be grown their influence on nutritional status of household members depends on many factors including: the amount of different foods harvested; the quantity and quality of the nutrients; the availability of nutrients in garden produce; methods of storage and processing; distribution of garden produce to different members of the household; the amount of produce sold and not consumed by the household; the way food is combined with other foods; the health and activity of household members.
• Many of the dryland crops that are excellent sources of energy, protein, vitamins, minerals, fats, and fiber have been presented in sections 2.4 to 2.9. In the following sections we discuss the nutrient yields of gardens and the contribution of gardens to nutrition.

Chapter 3: Gardens, Economics and Marketing

• One reason why many people garden is because of the income they can earn by marketing garden products.
• The important questions are: what are the economic contributions of existing gardens? Can they be improved, and, if so, how? Under what conditions will gardens make economic sense for households that do not have them?
• We believe that economic development should be: environmentally sustainable by not destroying resources that will be needed by future generations; socially sustainable by providing benefits equitably, which may include redistribution of control over resources.
• To meet these goals development projects should: encourage local self-reliance by building on local knowledge and resources; encourage both biological and cultural diversity; encourage community organizations that place a priority on social well-being.

3.1 Summary

Gardens provide both income and savings, but their effects on the whole household or individual household members depend on many factors both within and beyond the household. To contribute to sustainable development, each garden or garden project needs to be adapted to the local social system and environment, and not based on the faulty assumptions of conventional economics. This demands an understanding of gardeners’ economic decision making and the forces that affect it. For example, while women are often the gardeners in the household, they may not have control over productive sources like land, or over income from marketing garden produce. Marketing and processing techniques can help reduce gardeners’ risks and to increase benefits to the household. Forming cooperatives can spread risks and is often an appropriate way to organize market gardening. In many places indigenous or spontaneous social groups become the basis for successful marketing cooperatives.

Chapter 4: Assessment Techniques

4.1 Summary

• An assessment gathers information about local conditions, needs, and resources and is a vital part of planning for any project. In addition, assessments are valuable for monitoring projects while in progress and for evaluating their impact after completion.
• Different individuals and groups have different perspectives on local conditions and different ideas about how projects should be done. All perspectives are useful but the views of the community members, especially those who will be directly affected, are most important.

PART II: GARDEN MANAGEMENT

Chapter 5: How Plants Live and Grow

Chapter 6: Growing Plants From Seeds

Chapter 7: Vegetative Propagation

Chapter 8: Plant Management

Chapter 9: Soils in the Garden

Chapter 10: Water, Soils, and Plants

Chapter 11: Sources of Water for the Garden

Chapter 12: Irrigation and Water-Lifting

Chapter 13: Pest and Disease Management

PART III: GARDEN HARVEST

Chapter 14: Saving Seeds for Planting

Chapter 15: Processing, Storing, and Marketing Food from the Garden

Chapter 16: Weaning Foods from the Garden

PART IV: RESOURCES

Chapter 17: Glossary

Chapter 18: Some Crops for Dryland Gardens

Chapter 19: Resource Organizations

Chapter 20: References

Index