Homegarden diversity and food security in southern Mexico

Abstract

Home gardens are recognised in the literature for their contribution to food security, yet the process by which agrobiodiversity and household characteristics mediate this relationship is less well understood. This paper contributes to fill this research gap by drawing on a multi-site case study in the Yucatán region in Mexico. By applying regression analysis, the significance of the association between home garden diversity and food security is confirmed. Plant diversity is found to have a positive association with food consumption scores and the frequency of vegetable intakes. The number of animals used for food purposes is also found to have positive and significant associations with food consumption scores and frequency of meat intakes. However, the dimension and the significance of these positive associations were found to vary among communities and quantiles of the distribution of food security measures. In the households studied, younger individuals and better-educated people, males and Spanish speakers were more likely to engage in jobs in urban areas. Engagement in urban jobs was found to involve complementarities with the overall plant diversity of home gardens, but also trade-offs with the diversity of vegetables and other herbs used for food purposes and with the abundance of animals raised for food purposes.

Homegarden agroforestry systems in achievement of Sustainable Development Goals. A review

“…Also, in India, edible plants form 39% of the total plant species in HG (George and Christopher 2020 ). Complementing a similar study in the Yucatán region of Mexico highlighted a positive relationship between plant diversity and animal diversity in HG to better dietary intake (Castañeda-Navarrete 2021 ).…”

“…The publications interrelated with targets 2.1 (food security) and 2.2 (nutritional security) of Goal 2 were 38% and 15%, respectively. The production of food rich in vitamins and micronutrients, especially vitamin A, was reported to be substantially high in the HG compared to other agriculture systems (Whitney et al 2017 ; Castañeda-Navarrete 2021 ; Pinela et al 2012 ). The importance of HG in providing food and nutritional security has already been reported from Thailand, Uganda, Mexico, Ethiopia, India, and Bangladesh (Cruz-Garcia and Struik 2015 ; Whitney et al 2018a ; Wolka et al 2021 ; George and Christopher 2020 ; Panyadee et al 2018 ; Schreinemachers et al 2015 ; Ferdous et al 2016 ).…”

“…Ten (11%) publications have mentioned this target of Goal 5. In rural Bangladesh and the Yucatan region of Mexico, HG are generating employment for rural women (Kabir et al 2016 ; Castañeda-Navarrete 2021 ). Studies from the Iberian Peninsula and Mexico reported that HG managed by women was more species-rich on a unit area basis than gardens managed by men.…”

Revisiting food security in 2021: an overview of the past year

“…Some of these relationships can be complex as reported by Bakhtsiyarava and Grace ( 2021 ) in Ethiopia too: while increased farm production diversity (more cereals and animal products) is usually associated with reduced risk of chronic food insecurity in children, excessively diverse food production may increase food insecurity in periods of low rainfall. The contribution to food diversity from non-agricultural production is illustrated by aquaculture in Bolivia (Irwin et al, 2021 ) and by home gardens in Mexico (Castañeda-Navarrete, 2021 ).…”

Diversidade de plantas alimentícias encontradas em quintais da comunidade Bom Lugar, Campo Maior-PI

“…A Organização das Nações Unidas para Alimentação e Agricultura (FAO) estimou que, aproximadamente, 2 bilhões de pessoas no mundo tiveram acesso ao mínimo à alimentação para a sobrevivência no ano de 2018, e, destes, mais de 820 milhões passaram fome (FAO et al, 2019;Castañeda-Navarrete, 2021).…”