Techno socio- economic characterisation of specialised homegardens : a dominance - diversity approach

Abstract

This study entitled ‘Techno socio-economic characterization of specialized homegardens: a dominance-diversity approach’ was conducted at Palakkad, Thrissur, and Ernakulam districts covering 30 homegardens with 10 each from each district. It examines the structural configuration and its functional dynamics, delineates the technology gaps cum dimensions of technologies as perceived by farmers, investigates the cost-benefit analysis and cultural importance, evaluates selected aspects of women's participation in homegarden activities and constraints experienced by the specialized homegarden farmers. In this study Specialized homegardens are operationally defined as a special type of sustainable agricultural production system practised around the home with or without extended garden, with homegarden primary structure supplemented with specialized components like sericulture, apiculture, aquaculture, etc. making way for the homegardens to be categorized as subsistence with subsidiary commercial interest and/or made for a particular purpose to the extent that it becomes visibly different from the general types of the traditional types of homegarden farming system. The structural configuration and functional dynamics were identified using the measure of dominance, measure of Shannon and Wiener diversity index and the extent of horizontal and vertical integration in the specialized homegardens. 5-7 major crop dominance was observed and eighty per cent of the specialized homegardens had more than four tier horizontal diversification and ‘two’ levels of vertical diversification for economically dominant crop and around ‘three’ levels for specialized components. The economics of specialized homegardens revealed no significance between the benefit-cost ratios of the different specialized components, which suggests that the benefit is independent of the type of specialization. Also, more than 70 per cent of the respondents felt that middlemen were useful and essential in the marketing of homegarden produce but majority did not prefer middlemen in marketing of produce from specialized components. Technology gap assessment as perceived by the respondents using a Chi- square test revealed that, the distribution had the same technology needs (χ2= 0.598). Ten dimensions were felt important by all categories of respondents and an additional six dimensions perceived by the farmers were found to fall out of the ambit of extension and scientific community which was yet to be bridged. It was found that there were significant differences in the role of women in specialized homegarden activities. The foremost constraint identified was low price of the homegarden produce which was on par with the constraint ‘surplus produces but insufficient for marketing’. To conclude, primarily a system with dominance has been developed which is again derived from diversity index and extent of horizontal versus vertical diversification which will help in enumerating the commodity and non commodity nature of crops and hence enable better planning of homegardens for increased profit without depleting the biodiversity of specialized homegardens. Techno socio-economic dimensions of specialized homegardens were prioritized wherein 10 dimensions were felt important by all categories of respondents and six dimensions felt important by the farmers were not perceived to be important either by the Scientists or Agricultural Officers that needs to be addressed. Strategies like cluster marketing, group marketing and pooled marketing should be planned and implemented to overcome the constraints of the low price of produce and surplus insufficient for marketing to make this important production a durable and sustainable system.