Home gardens

Videos

Four men kneel in a home garden full of vegetables. The man whose garden it is gestures towards the crops.

In this community video, the men and women work together to make a new garden and ensure more food is available for everyone.

Keywords: Community media, Home gardens
Location: Niger, Sahel

Success Stories

Thiane Dramé waters the garden SPRING helped her to diversify.

In the Thiaré Department of Senegal’s Kaolack region, eating a healthy, varied diet can be expensive. As Thiane Dramé’s family grew, so did the challenges to providing the food and health...

SPRING Nutrition Coordinator Grace Essien visits a household vegetable garden in Ebom, Nigeria, where residents believed they could not grow their own food.

After attending a training on optimal infant and young child feeding in September 2015, community volunteer Janet Nkanu was determined to help families in Ebom, Nigeria increase their...

Nasima’s family helps her prepare and use the compost that allows them to grow more nutritious vegetables. Photo credit: SPRING/Bangladesh

The creation and use of compost is just one of the many agricultural techniques taught to the local farmer nutrition school students in Bangladesh's Barisal and Khulna Divisions.

Mehdi Hasan Sattar helps his wife in the homestead garden, where the family grows nutritious vegetables. Photo credit: SPRING/Bangladesh

When Mehdi Hasan Sattar, a resident of Khulna's Rupsha upazila, first heard that his wife had enrolled in a USAID-funded farmer nutrition school (FNS), he was skeptical.

Aporna Shikder and her daughter use a tippy tap to wash their hands in rural Bangladesh.

Thanks to the FNS, which is implemented by SPRING, Ms. Shikder is getting more out of her poultry rearing operation after learning new techniques like providing vaccinations for healthier...

A More Plentiful Home

In October 2014, Parvin, then a lactating mother, enrolled in one of the Farmer Nutrition Schools (FNS) organized by the USAID SPRING project. She has never missed an FNS session. In...

Cashing in on Improved Hatching Pots

Fatema Begum attended every farmer nutrition school (FNS) session, and during the poultry-rearing sessions, she learned about the importance of the “hajol,” or improved hatching pot.

Piyara with her youngest child

Ten months ago, Piyara enrolled in one of SPRING’s Farmer Nutrition School (FNS) sessions in the Lalmohan upazila. During these FNS sessions, she learned about proper health, nutrition,...

News

Nathan Park, center, poses with SPRING volunteers and trainers after a session on methods of long term storage and preservation of nutritious foods at home.

Deputy Mission Director Nathan Park visited SPRING activity sites in Kok-Jangak rayon, where he participated in a training on home-based storage of nutritious foods, and joined a home visit...

A group of saplings

SPRING/Mali distributed 11,000 moringa, 2,750 papayas, and 2,750 baobab tree saplings to FNS beneficiaries as a follow-up to FNS training.

Activities

FNS participants receive a cooking demonstration about incorporating nutrient rich foods like squash and okra.

SPRING is reaching local farmers across the Mopti region with nutrition-sensitive agriculture education through Farmer Nutrition School trainings.

Reports

family outside

This study provides insight into the factors that motivate households to take up production of nutrient-dense foods, to consume nutritious foods that they produce rather than sell, and to...

Image of child sitting outside house

Qualitative research report conducted by Jody Harris (IFPRI) and Aaron Buchsbaum (SPRING). Examines a homestead food production activity carried out by HKI in Burkina Faso, using a series...

Keywords: Home gardens, Integration
Location: Burkina Faso, Sahel

Posters

Factors Influencing Home Garden Choices Related to Dietary Diversity in Bangladesh

The findings of this study suggest that women in Bangladesh value food production skills training as the single most important motivating factor for homestead production.

Resource Review Summaries

Garden kits that pay specific attention to small-scale irrigation might hold the key to stronger food security for smallholder farmers. A new study recommends an approach to building better...

The international home food production group supports and promotes home food production, including but not limited to a mixture of home gardening, orchards, small livestock production,...

Keywords: Home gardens

This comprehensive, 50+ page report provides perspective from DFID UK on the effectiveness of using agricultural activities to achieve nutrition outcomes. A literature review drawing...

Keywords: Agriculture, Aflatoxin, Home gardens
Location: Africa, Asia