Homestead based agro - biodiversity - a farmer participatory study

Abstract

Homestead farming is a traditional practice of multiple and mixed cropping in small holdings in Kerala. Home gardens are an integral part of the livelihood systems, and could contribute to the family food, income and the conservation of biodiversity. Home garden is one of the components of agro biodiversity.

The home garden agro ecosystem is an important system for the maintenance of agro biodiversity beyond its primary function in crop production, household food security and nutrition. It is an important area for effectively implementing programmes geared towards biodiversity conservation, food security and sustainable development.

This study was undertaken in Thrissur, Thrikkur, Pananchery and Adat panchayats were selected representing high elevation lands, medium elevation lands and low elevation lands respectively. From these panchayats 15 homesteads were selected purposively based on farm size making a total sample size of 45.

Inventory of crop and other plants was prepared for 45 homesteads and divided into different categories with the percentage occurrence of each crop. It was noted that 100 per cent occurrence is obtained for coconut crop. Next crop which recorded the highest frequency was banana i.e.97.78

Biodiversity of homesteads of these regions were estimated based on two major biodiversity indices namely Margalef index (1958) and Shannon-Wiener diversity index (1985). Margalef index measures the species richness and Shannon-Wiener diversity index measures the species diversity. Based on this low elevation lands recorded the highest species richness and species diversity.

The level of awareness about agro biodiversity was assessed. More than 55 per cent of the respondents were having medium level of awareness. The level of perception about ecosystem services of homesteads was also found medium among the respondents.

Positive correlation between farmer’s awareness on agro biodiversity was observed for three variables namely education, information source utilization and innovativeness were positively and significantly correlated at 1 per cent level of significance. The correlation analysis for the perception of the stakeholders about the ecosystem services of the homesteads had similar results. Age and occupation had negative correlation.

Gender roles in agro biodiversity confirmed that most of the activities were undertaken by women farmers. Kitchen garden activity which is recorded the highest per cent i.e. 90.

Most important constraint faced by farmers in homestead based agro biodiversity conservation was the unavailability of water. The next important constraint was scarcity of labour and high cost of labour which was expressed by 95.56 percentage of respondents.

Unsustainable human activity was the main threat to homestead based agro biodiversity conservation with the highest frequency of occurrence i.e. 100 per cent. Second most important threat was large scale introduction of cash crops and mono-cropping (96.67 per cent).

To conclude, variability in home gardens exists within region and between regions and as the size of holding increased, agro-biodiversity was found to decrease. The homesteads surveyed, generally were rich in agro-biodiversity. Women gender contributed more to conserving it.