What is good about Sri Lankan homegardens with regards to food security? A synthesis of the current scientific knowledge of a multifunctional land-use system

Abstract

Recently, there has been growing interest in agroforestry systems due to their great potential to mitigate threats to household food and nutrition security from soaring food prices but also as carbon sinks. In Sri Lanka, smallholder farms such as homegardens constitute a majority of Sri Lanka's total annual crop and timber production. Despite Sri Lankan homegardens being considered desirable and sustainable land-use systems, their role in food and nutrition security is not yet entirely understood. By synthesising scientific articles and grey literature we sought the link between food security and homegardens by quantifying their products or services and ascertaining whether food security characteristics are assessed as direct or indirect impacts. The results show that 27 % of 92 identified articles directly quantified aspects that are relevant to food security. Another 51 % of the articles quantified indirect aspects that have relevance for food security, including climate, soil, ecosystem services, structural and floristic diversity and economic aspects. Twenty-two percent of the articles were categorised as being qualitative or conceptual and contained no direct assessments or quantification of food security. The presence of significant merits from homegardens includes providing food security throughout the year at low-cost while sustaining numerous ecosystem services. This benefits particularly the poor farmers. However, many studies are descriptive and only provide location-specific information on single research focuses such as plant species, yield and management. There are few comparisons with crop land, forests or other production systems, and there is even less empirical evidence and quantification of the food security and other benefits. Seven areas where more scientific focus would be beneficial are identified. Homegardens are strong in national policies and to reach a greater level of efficiency within these activities our findings suggest more emphasis on a higher degree of inclusiveness of relevant stakeholders and long-term engagements with context specific guidance.

An Overview of Ecosystem Service Studies in a Tropical Biodiversity Hotspot, Sri Lanka: Key Perspectives for Future Research

“…Another important ecosystem when mentioning food provisioning services in Sri Lanka is home gardens as they provide food security throughout the year at a low cost while providing numerous other ecosystem services [84]. Though Eskil Mattsson, Ostwald and Nissanka, 2013 [85] mentioned that the current estimation of home garden distribution in Sri Lanka is 15% of the land area, almost every home in Sri Lanka has some form of a home garden, either small or large, to self-provide some of the daily utilized food items.…”

Multifunctional Land Uses in Africa

“…First, such comparisons tend to fall into traps of conventional economic reasoning, where externalities and nonmonetary values are unaccounted for. Second, the bias towards monocultures in policies, extension, statistics, and experimental research makes it difficult to counter-argue with relevant evidence (see Mattsson et al 2018). Conversely, multifunctional land use is hampered by its broad and undefined scope that can incorporate all or nothing and is sensitive to context.…”

Smallholder reforestation and livelihoods in the humid tropics: a systematic mapping study

“…The higher importance of homegardens identified in the current study indicates that they are increasingly being recognised as being especially important to smallholder livelihoods compared to other agroforestry systems. In Sri Lanka, for instance, homegardens have been included in several governmental programs as key components to address food security issues (Mattsson et al 2017). Homegardens have been recognised as being highly valuable for food security globally, due to the increased costs of food production, climate change mitigation potential and their potential to be an alternative farming system to intensive agriculture and forestry monoculture (Mattsson et al 2017).…”

“…In Sri Lanka, for instance, homegardens have been included in several governmental programs as key components to address food security issues (Mattsson et al 2017). Homegardens have been recognised as being highly valuable for food security globally, due to the increased costs of food production, climate change mitigation potential and their potential to be an alternative farming system to intensive agriculture and forestry monoculture (Mattsson et al 2017). Besides food and nutritional security, homegardens also provide income security and family labour employment to smallholders, and they are often crucial for the subsistence of the poor and marginal farmers in developing countries (Singh et al 2016).…”