Contribution of Home Gardens to Sustainable Development: Perspectives from A Supported Opinion Essay

Abstract

Home gardening has a long history that started when humans became sedentary, being traditionally considered an accessible source of food and medicinal plants to treat common illnesses. With trends towards urbanization and industrialization, particularly in the post-World War II period, the importance of home gardens as important spaces for growing food and medicinal plants reduced and they began to be increasingly seen as decorative and leisure spaces. However, the growing awareness of the negative impacts of agricultural intensification and urbanization for human health, food quality, ecosystem resilience, and biodiversity conservation motivated the emergence of new approaches concerning home gardens. Societies began to question the potential of nearby green infrastructures to human wellbeing, food provisioning, and the conservation of traditional varieties, as well as providers of important services, such as ecological corridors for wild species and carbon sinks. In this context. and to foster adaptive and resilient social-ecological systems, our supported viewpoint intends to be more than an exhaustive set of perceptions, but a reflection of ideas about the important contribution of home gardens to sustainable development. We envision these humble spaces strengthening social and ecological components, by providing a set of diversified and intermingled goods and services for an increasingly urban population.

Keywords: biodiversity; ecosystem services; food quality; food security; health benefits; home gardening; human wellbeing; sustainability.

Figure A1

The three features associated with gardening activities discussed in this viewpoint: (A) Wellbeing and health; (B) Nutrition and carbon footprint reduction; (C) Biodiversity and nature conservation.

Figure 1

The stepwise framework used to structure our supported opinion essay: step 1, forum between the core researchers, including the definition of home gardens and their significance for sustainable development goals; step 2, core researchers’ drafts concerning home gardens and sustainable development goals; step 3, support and confrontation of core researchers’ ideas and opinions of bibliography; step 4, discussion of different viewpoints and production of the first manuscript draft; step 5, enlarged discussion of additional experts’ opinions; step 6, production of the supported opinion essay.

Figure 2

Pathways of contribution of home (and community) gardening to food security.

Figure 3

Home garden most usual “spaces”: (a) the vegetable garden; (b) the flower garden; (c) the lawn; (d) trees, shrubs, and hedges; (e) the garden pond; (f) paved and constructed surfaces.