ABSTRACT

The study assessed the effectiveness of homestead garden on food security among rural households in Abia State, Nigeria. Specifically, the study described the socioeconomic characteristics of the respondents; identified crops produced by respondents in the home garden; ascertained the respondent’s perception on home stead garden; ascertained the level of food security among the rural households; determined the contribution of home garden to the household food security; ascertained the effectiveness of homestead garden on food security among rural households; and identified the challenges associated with homestead garden in the study area. Multistage random sampling procedure was used in selecting 180 respondents. Data were collected using structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics such as frequency distribution, mean scores, percentages and standard deviation as well as inferential statistics such as multiple regression were used in analyzing the data. The result showed that the respondents had a mean age ( = 50.7 years) and a mean household size ( = 6.6 persons) respectively. Majority (77.2%) of the respondents were married. Furthermore, the foremost garden crops produced in the study area were oha (91.1%), pawpaw (82.2%), uziza (72.8%), oranges (72.1%), and bitter leaf (71.1%). The respondents in the study had positive perception on home garden as affirmed by grand mean of 3.24. The study further showed that 57.8% of the homestead farmers in the study area were food secured. The major contributions of home garden to the household food security were wide range of crop varieties are at household disposal ( = 3.05), can be managed along with other farm enterprises such as apiary, livestock and agroforestry ( = 3.04), encourages organic farming, ( = 3.01), and produces high quality farm products ( = 2.98).  Home gardening was shown to be effective on the household food security. The foremost constraints  associated to homestead garden were water requirement is high during the dry spell (86.7%), low returns from the practice (82.2%), homestead gardening crops are susceptible to pests and diseases (81.1%), and requires specialized skills in managing the crop (80.0%). The result of the simple linear regression analysis showed that home gardening output had significant effect on the level of food security at 5% significance level. The result of the multiple regression analysis also showed that the coefficient of marital status (10630.76), education (1341.669), and labour cost (-6678.73) were significantly related to food security. The study recommends awareness campaigns on increasing the number of trees to be planted in homestead, promotion of fruit trees planting and improvement of the extension-farmers ratio to increase extension-farmers coverage.