Impact of a Homestead Food Production Program on Dietary Diversity: Seasonal and Annual Results from the Cluster-Randomized FAARM Trial in Sylhet, Bangladesh.

BACKGROUND: Rice-predominant diets are common in Bangladesh, leading to widespread nutritional deficiencies. The Food and Agricultural Approaches to Reducing Malnutrition (FAARM) cluster-randomized controlled trial in rural Sylhet, Bangladesh evaluated a homestead food production intervention implemented 2015-2018 through Helen Keller International, aiming to improve child growth. OBJECTIVES: We estimated the intervention's impact on women's and children's dietary diversity, a secondary trial objective. METHODS: We collected dietary diversity throughout the trial (March 2015 to June 2020) at multiple times each year using standard, United Nations-endorsed, self-reported measures for women (10-food group scale) and children (7-food group scale). We included 28,282 observations of 2701 women (out of 2705 enrolled) and 17,445 observations of their 3257 children (aged 6-37 mo) in 96 settlements, 48 of which received the intervention. We estimated the intervention's impact on dietary diversity by year of intervention, overall periods following the start of the intervention, and seasonally, using multilevel regression with the control group as the counterfactual, controlling for seasonality, baseline dietary diversity, and clustering by settlement and repeated measures. RESULTS: At baseline, approximately one-third of women and children consumed a minimally diverse diet. Over the entire intervention and postintervention period, women's and children's odds of consuming a minimally diverse diet nearly doubled (odds ratio [OR] 1.8, P < 0.001, for both). This benefit was barely present in the first year, increased in the second, and peaked in the last intervention year (OR 2.4 for women, OR 2.5 for children, both P < 0.001) before settling at around double the odds in postintervention years (P < 0.001). Dietary improvement was observed throughout the year for both women and children with incremental increases in nearly all food groups. CONCLUSIONS: The nutrition-sensitive agriculture intervention successfully increased dietary diversity in women and children, and these impacts persisted after the project closed, including during the early COVID 19 lockdown period. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT02505711.

An Increase in Food Insecurity Correlated with an Increase in Plasma Triglycerides among Latinx Children.

BACKGROUND: Food insecurity and metabolic diseases both disproportionately affect Hispanic children. Cross-sectional studies have linked food insecurity with adverse cardiometabolic markers, including elevated plasma triglycerides and glucose concentrations. However, the association between changes in food insecurity and changes in cardiometabolic markers in children remains to be explored. Furthermore, few studies have assessed the impact of school-based nutrition interventions on household food insecurity. OBJECTIVE: The objectives of this study are to assess the effect of the TX Sprouts intervention on household food insecurity and to examine the association between changes in household food insecurity and changes in cardiometabolic markers over 1 academic year. METHODS: This secondary analysis used data from TX Sprouts, a cluster-randomized school-based gardening, cooking, and nutrition trial. The study enrolled 3rd-5th-grade students from 16 schools that served primarily (>50%) Hispanic families with low income in Austin, TX. Participants (n = 619) provided household food insecurity data and fasting lipid panels at both baseline and postintervention, ∼9 mo following. RESULTS: There was no intervention effect on household food insecurity. Independent of the intervention, a 1-point increase in food insecurity, indicative of becoming more food insecure, was associated with a 2.61 mg/dL increase in triglycerides (P = 0.001; 95% CI: 1.04, 4.19) at follow-up. Children who were food insecure at baseline and became food secure at follow-up had a mean 5.05 mg/dL decrease in triglycerides compared with a 7.50 mg/dL increase in triglycerides in children who remained food insecure throughout (95% CI: -23.40, -1.71, P = 0.023). There were no other associations between changes in food insecurity and cardiometabolic markers. CONCLUSION: Although the intervention did not improve food insecurity, reductions in food insecurity over 9 mo were associated with improved cardiometabolic markers in high-risk children, emphasizing the need for interventions targeting food insecurity. The study is registered at clinicaltrials.gov under NCT02668744 (https://classic. CLINICALTRIALS: gov/ct2/show/NCT02668744).

Outdoor gardening activity with different frequency and duration may be associated with reduction of total and cause-specific mortality risk for general U.S. adults: Findings from the NHANES.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Engaging in recommended levels of physical activity (PA) is associated with reduced overall and cause-specific mortality rates. Our study aims to examine the relationship between gardening-specific PA and all-cause and cause-specific mortality based on representative U.S. adults. METHODS AND RESULTS: A total of 13,812 adults representing 663.5 million non-institutionalized U.S. adults were included in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Self-reported gardening activity (GA) was assessed by a validated questionnaire, and outcomes of interest were all-cause mortality and mortality specific to certain causes. Hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were estimated using survey-multivariable Cox proportional hazards models. During a median follow-up period of 16.8 years (Interquartile range = 14.8-18.7), there were 3,476 deaths. After adjusting for potential covariates, we found that participants exposed to GA were more likely to have a lower risk of total mortality [HR (95% CI): 0.76 (0.68, 0.85), P-value < 0.001], cancer-specific mortality [HR (95% CI): 0.81 (0.67, 0.99), P-value < 0.05], cardiovascular disease mortality [HR (95% CI): 0.65 (0.53, 0.80), P-value < 0.001], and respiratory disease mortality [HR (95% CI): 0.66 (0.45, 0.98), P-value < 0.05], compared to those without GA exposure. Furthermore, engaging in GA more frequently and for longer durations was significantly associated with a lower total mortality risk. CONCLUSION: Our study provides evidence that engaging in GA is associated with a decreased risk of overall and cause-specific mortality. However, further longitudinal or interventional studies are needed to investigate the potential benefits of GA.

Gardening and subjective cognitive decline: a cross-sectional study and mediation analyses of 136,748 adults aged 45+ years.

BACKGROUND: Given the benefits of gardening for physical and psychological health, we explored whether gardening was associated with lower risks of subjective cognitive decline (SCD), a precursor of dementia, and SCD-related functional limitations. METHODS: Included in this cross-sectional study were 136,748 participants aged 45 + years old from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System 2019 survey, who were then categorized into three groups according to self-reported exercise status: non-exercisers, gardeners, and other exercisers. SCD was assessed via a questionnaire, and SCD-related functional limitations were referred to as having difficulties in engaging in household or social activities due to SCD. The odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated to assess the associations of gardening with SCD and SCD-related functional limitations, adjusted for age, sex, socioeconomic status, lifestyle factors, and health status. Mediation analyses were conducted to examine whether the observed association between gardening and SCD was mediated by energy expenditure (MET-hours/week), depression status, and consumption of fruits and vegetables. RESULTS: Overall, 11.1% and 5.4% of participants self-reported experiencing SCD and SCD-related functional limitations, respectively. The adjusted OR for gardeners vs. non-exercisers, was 0.72 (95% CI 0.62-0.83) for SCD and 0.57 (95% CI 0.44-0.73) for SCD-related functional limitations. The observed association between gardening and SCD was explained by higher energy expenditure (39.0%), lower likelihood of having depression (21.5%), and higher consumption of fruits and vegetables (3.4%) (P<0.05 for all). Similar patterns were observed for SCD-related functional limitations. CONCLUSION: In this nationally representative sample, gardening was associated with better cognitive status, which may be mainly attributed to better depression status and energy expenditure.

Quantifying the relationship between gardening and health and well-being in the UK: a survey during the covid-19 pandemic.

BACKGROUND: Rates of non-communicable diseases, including cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes, and mental health problems, such as anxiety and depression, are high and rising in the urbanising world. Gardening could improve both mental and physical health and help prevent a range of conditions by increasing fruit and vegetable (F&V) consumption, promoting physical activity, and reducing stress. However, good quality quantitative research in the area is scarce, and our understanding of the role of allotments and home gardens, and the effects of the level of engagement in gardening and involvement with food production has thus far been limited. METHODS: We quantitatively assess the relationship between home and allotment gardening and various indicators and predictors of health and well-being using an online survey of gardeners (n = 203) and non-gardeners (n = 71) in the UK. The survey was composed of multiple validated questionnaires (including the Short Form Food Frequency Questionnaire (SFFFQ), the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS), the Physical Health Questionnaire (PHQ) and the Self-Rated Health question (SRH)) and self-defined questions relating to participants' involvement with gardening and food production, and relevant demographic and lifestyle factors. Data were analysed using a series of hierarchical logistic and multiple linear regression models adjusting for socio-demographic variables. RESULTS: After adjusting for relevant socio-demographic factors, gardening related variables were associated with better self-rated health, higher mental well-being, increased F&V consumption. Higher F&V intake was in turn also associated with better self-rated health and decreased odds of obesity. Thus, gardening had a positive association with four different aspects of health and well-being, directly or indirectly via increased F&V consumption. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that gardening in UK allotments and domestic gardens may promote different aspects of health and well-being via multiple mechanisms. Improving access to growing space and promoting regular gardening could provide a range of benefits to public health. More research on how socio-economic factors influence the health and well-being benefits of gardening will help policymakers devise strategies to maximise these benefits.

Impact of information technology supported serious leisure gardening on the wellbeing of older adults: The Turntable project.

OBJECTIVE: The study presented in this paper aimed to assess the effect of an Information Technology enabled community gardening program for older adults, developed by an international consortium. METHODS: We have executed a quantitative, pre- and post-test field trial with older adult volunteers to test the proposed programme in two European countries, Italy and Belgium (n=98). We used standardized and ad hoc questionnaires to measure changes in the volunteers' mental and psychological state during the trial. The statistical data analysis sought for differences in the pre- and post-test values of the key scores related to the perceived quality of life and benefits of gardening via paired-samples t-tests, and also tried to identify the important factors of significant changes via logistic regression. RESULTS: We found significant improvements in the perceived benefits of gardening and also in the scores computed from the WHO Quality of Life instruments, especially in the social sub-domains. The improvements were associated with the country, age, marital state and education of the volunteers. Higher age or being widow, divorced or single increased the odds of a significant improvement in the scores in more than one sub-domains. CONCLUSION: Though the two trial settings were different in some aspects, the observed significant improvements generally confirmed the positive effects of gardening concerning the perceived quality of life and benefits of gardening.

Application of soil amendments to reduce the transfer of trace metal elements from contaminated soils of Lubumbashi (Democratic Republic of the Congo) to vegetables.

The extraction of copper and cobalt from mines has led to the contamination of agricultural soils by trace metal elements (TMEs) (e.g. Cu: 204 to 1355 mg/kg). The mining industry is one of the sources of metal discharges into the environment, contributing to water, soil, and air contamination and causing metabolic disorders in the inhabitants of the city of Lubumbashi (R.D. Congo). This study assessed the effectiveness of organocalcareous soil improvers applied to TME-contaminated soils to reduce their transfer to plants. Following a factorial design, increasing doses of organic soil improvers (chicken droppings and sawdust) and agricultural lime were applied to the soils of three market gardens (high, medium, and low Cu contamination). The experiment was monitored for 60 days. Soil physicochemical properties (pH, TOC, and total and available copper, cobalt, lead, cadmium, and zinc (mg/kg)) were determined for the three gardens and in the vegetable biomass. The daily consumption index of the vegetables was determined based on total TME content. The results show that organocalcareous soil improvers did not promote plant growth and survival on soils with high and medium levels of copper contamination. However, on soils with low copper content, organocalcareous soil improvers improved germination and plant survival and reduced the transfer of metals from the soil to the plants. The best germination and plant survival rates were obtained with the lightly contaminated market garden. In addition, the organo-limestone amendments applied to the soils slightly increased the soil pH from acidic to slightly acidic, with pH values ranging from (5.43 ± 0.07 to 7.26 ± 0.33). The daily vegetable consumption index obtained for cobalt in the low-contaminated garden ranged from (0.029 to 0.465 mg/60 kg/day), i.e. from 0.5 to 8.45 times higher than the FAO/WHO limit, unlike the other trace metals (Cd, Cu and Pb) for which the daily consumption index found was lower than the FAO/WHO limit. Organocalcareous soil improvers can only be applied to soils with low levels of TME contamination, but for soils with medium to high levels of metal contamination, new soilless production techniques such as hydroponics or bioponics are needed.

Creating Local "Citizen's Governance Spaces" in Austerity Contexts : Food Recuperation and Urban Gardening in Montréal (Canada) as Ways to Pragmatically Invent Alternatives.

While there is a growing interest in citizen-led initiatives, there is still no consensus on how to situate them, especially in relation to state institutions. On the one hand, citizen-led initiatives are seen as being co-opted by formal institutions in a context of austerity. On the other hand, these initiatives are often presented as "spaces of resistance" to neoliberalism, or as political acts of reclaiming the city. Mapping and tracing urban gardening and dumpster diving from their grassroots emergence to their inclusion in the institutional world through a two-level analysis, we show that individuals and loosely organized collectives involved in such initiatives are embedded in complex relationships with local institutions and third sector organizations that do, in turn, structure their practice and its consequences. The two-level analysis we propose follows this process: it is through interactions and relationships with other "practitioners" and with their social and institutional environment that these urban social practices gradually institutionalize.

Environments and Hosts Structure the Bacterial Microbiomes of Fungus-Gardening Ants and their Symbiotic Fungus Gardens.

The fungus gardening-ant system is considered a complex, multi-tiered symbiosis, as it is composed of ants, their fungus, and microorganisms associated with either ants or fungus. We examine the bacterial microbiome of Trachymyrmex septentrionalis and Mycetomoellerius turrifex ants and their symbiotic fungus gardens, using 16S rRNA Illumina sequencing, over a region spanning approximately 350 km (east and central Texas). Typically, microorganisms can be acquired from a parent colony (vertical transmission) or from the environment (horizontal transmission). Because the symbiosis is characterized by co-dispersal of the ants and fungus, elements of both ant and fungus garden microbiome could be characterized by vertical transmission. The goals of this study were to explore how both the ant and fungus garden bacterial microbiome are acquired. The main findings were that different mechanisms appear to explain the structure the microbiomes of ants and their symbiotic fungus gardens. Ant associated microbiomes had a strong host ant signature, which could be indicative of vertical inheritance of the ant associated bacterial microbiome or an unknown mechanism of active uptake or screening. On the other hand, the bacterial microbiome of the fungus garden was more complex in that some bacterial taxa appear to be structured by the ant host species, whereas others by fungal lineage or the environment (geographic region). Thus bacteria in fungus gardens appear to be acquired both horizontally and vertically.

Development and evaluation of food preservation lessons for gardeners: application of the DESIGN process.

OBJECTIVE: This study presents the development and evaluation of food preservation lessons for gardeners. DESIGN: Lessons were developed using the DESIGN process, a nutrition education program planning framework. This study examines the effectiveness of this curriculum at increasing knowledge of proper food preservation practices and increasing participants' confidence in home food preservation, identifies challenges participants experienced with home food preservation and assesses the perceived influence of home food preservation on vegetable intake and aspects of food security. We used the DESIGN process developed by Contento and Koch to develop the curricula and used social cognitive theory to guide the lesson development. Lessons on three types of food preservation (freezing, water bath canning and pressure canning) were developed and presented to adult gardeners. The evaluation consisted of post-lesson surveys and a follow-up survey several months after the lessons. SETTING: Mid-Michigan, USA. PARTICIPANTS: Adult gardeners. RESULTS: Food preservation confidence increased following the lessons. At follow-up, 64 % of participants agreed or strongly agreed that they ate more fruit and vegetables because of preserving food, 57 % of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that they spend less money on food due to preserving, while 71 % reported being better able to provide food for themselves and their family. Lastly, 93 % reported feeling better about where their food comes from and wasting less food due to preserving. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides evidence that home food preservation may be beneficial in promoting fruit and vegetable intake and food security among gardeners.

Exploring feasibility and acceptability of an integrated urban gardens and peer nutritional counselling intervention for people with HIV in the Dominican Republic.

OBJECTIVE: Food security interventions with people living with HIV (PLHIV) are needed to improve HIV outcomes. This process evaluation of a pilot intervention involving urban gardening and peer nutritional counselling with PLHIV assesses feasibility, acceptability and implementation challenges to inform scale-up. DESIGN: Mixed methods were used, including quantitative data on intervention participation and feasibility and acceptability among participants (n 45) and qualitative data from a purposive sample of participants (n 21). Audio-recorded interviews were transcribed and coded using a codebook developed iteratively. SETTING: An HIV clinic in the northwest-central part of the Dominican Republic. RESULTS: The intervention was feasible for most participants: 84 % attended a garden workshop and 71 % established an urban garden; 91 % received all three core nutritional counselling sessions; and 73 % attended the cooking workshop. The intervention was also highly acceptable: nearly, all participants (93-96 %) rated the gardening as 'helpful' or 'very helpful' for taking HIV medications, their mental/emotional well-being and staying healthy; similarly, high percentages (89-97 %) rated the nutrition counselling 'helpful' or 'very helpful' for following a healthy diet, reducing unhealthy foods and increasing fruit/vegetable intake. Garden barriers included lack of space and animals/pests. Transportation barriers impeded nutritional counselling. Harvested veggies were consumed by participants' households, shared with neighbours and family, and sold in the community. Many emphasised that comradery with other PLHIV helped them cope with HIV-related marginalisation. CONCLUSION: An urban gardens and peer nutritional counselling intervention with PLHIV was feasible and acceptable; however, addressing issues of transportation, pests and space is necessary for equitable participation and benefit.

Evaluation of the Grow Your Groceries Home Gardening Program in Chicago, Illinois.

COVID-19 exacerbated existing disparities in food security in Chicago. Home gardening can improve food security but there are often barriers to participation and the benefits are understudied. Chicago Grows Food (CGF) formed in 2020 to address food insecurity during COVID-19, and created the Grow Your Groceries (GYG) program to provide home gardening kits to families at risk of food insecurity in Chicago. A participatory program evaluation was conducted to better understand the experiences of and benefits to individuals participating in GYG. Program participants shared feedback via focus groups (n = 6) and surveys (n = 72). Qualitative data were analyzed using an iterative coding process. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Most participants reported confidence in using a grow kit to grow food, increased healthy food consumption, easier access to healthy food, and high likelihood of growing food again. Additionally, participants described increased connections within their communities, increased interaction with their family, and personal growth as benefits of the program. These results demonstrate the benefits of a novel home gardening program that uses fabric grow bags to address food insecurity. A larger scale program evaluation is necessary to better understand the impacts of participating in this home gardening program.

A home gardening intervention to improve vegetable consumption among urban poor children: A study protocol for randomised controlled trial.

Background: One of the key importance of vegetable consumption is to obtain sufficient micronutrients, dietary fibre, and for the prevention of childhood obesity. Most Malaysian children did not meet the recommended intake of vegetable consumption, and this is especially vulnerable among the urban poor population due to food insecurity. Efforts are needed to promote vegetable consumption that fall short of the recommended intake level. Aim: This trial aims to examine the effectiveness of the "GrowEat" project, as a nutrition intervention programme integrated with home gardening activities to improve vegetable consumption among urban poor children in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Methods: This is a single-blinded parallel two-arm cluster randomised controlled trial (RCT) that include 134 children. Two zones in Kuala Lumpur will be randomly selected, and three low-cost housing flats from each zone will be selected as the intervention and control groups respectively. The trial is designed based on the social cognitive theory (SCT). Children from the intervention group (n = 67) will attend a 12-week programme, which consists of home garden-based activities, gardening and nutrition education session. Assessment will be conducted for both groups at three time points: baseline, post-intervention and follow-up phase at 3 months after the intervention. Conclusion: We anticipate positive changes in vegetable consumption and its related factors after the implementation of the "GrowEat" project. The current intervention may also serve as a model and can be extended to other urban poor population for similar interventions in the future to improve vegetable consumption, agriculture and nutrition awareness.

How can residents protect and promote pollinators? The diffusion of residential pollinator-friendly gardening.

Urbanization and land use change are leading causes of declines in pollinator abundance and diversity. However, researchers in different regions of the world have found that some pollinators can thrive in urban landscapes, depending on land use practices, environmental conditions, and species traits. Residential landscapes constitute a significant portion of urban green space and thus, residents' adoption of landscape practices to promote pollinators can play a central role in addressing the global pollinator challenge. Yet, although residents' willingness and intention appear strong, adoption of pollinator-friendly gardening remains low. The present study - guided by the Diffusion of Innovations theory - aimed to build empirical understanding by surveying 1598 [State] residents on their experiences and perceptions related to pollinator-friendly gardening to determine the most salient barriers and opportunities to engagement. Key findings suggest making the practice more widely observable and reducing perceived complexity in learning to do the practice are critical to promoting adoption. This demonstrates, in practical terms, that: (1) targeted efforts to build residents' actionable knowledge about pollinator-friendly gardening may significantly reduce uncertainty and boost the likelihood of adoption; and (2) examples of active pollinator gardens need to be more widely showcased and popularized (e.g., through experiential or virtual demonstrations). We also found most residents living in homeowner associations (HOAs) believed HOA policies on pollinator-friendly gardening were restrictive or the residents were unsure whether they are allowed to practice pollinator-friendly gardening. Given these perceptions strongly associated with residents' low intent to engage in pollinator-friendly gardening, a major opportunity exists to diffuse the practice and increase adoption by working with HOAs and community leaders to become promoters of - rather than barriers to - pollinator-friendly gardening.

Home Gardening Resurgence During COVID: Motivations and Perceived Benefits of Participating in Grow This!

Gardening is associated with a wide array of health benefits. We describe the dissemination of a low-cost social media-based campaign (Grow This!), an intervention intended to reach novice gardeners and which combined elements of old (seeds) and new (Facebook) technology. Grow This! was implemented before (2018, 2019) and during (2020) the COVID pandemic, providing an interesting framework for understanding participants' motivations for gardening. Pre- and post-surveys assessed a variety of topics, including participants' motivations for participating in Grow This!, how they planned to participate, previous gardening experience, the main benefits attributed to participation, and intentions to garden in the future. Descriptive statistics and qualitative analysis were used to analyze the survey data. More than 25,000 people participated in Grow This! over the 3 years, with the majority (77%) participating as a family. Participation in the project spiked during COVID. Primary motivations for participating in Grow This! pre-COVID were education, enjoyment, family engagement, and self-sufficiency; during COVID, motivations remained the same, but shifted in rank. Just over a third of participants were novice gardeners. Participants attributed numerous benefits to their participation, including stress reduction/relaxation, more outdoor time, reduced grocery bills, and eating more fruits and vegetables than normal. A total of 83% of respondents reported being highly likely to have a garden in the future. Home gardening as an intervention is ripe for dissemination, particularly in the aftermath of COVID. Public health professionals can benefit from this understanding of people's motivations to garden and the perceived benefits associated with gardening.

The effectiveness of group-based gardening interventions for improving wellbeing and reducing symptoms of mental ill-health in adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: There is increasing interest in the association between nature, health and wellbeing. Gardening is a popular way in which interaction with nature occurs and numerous gardening projects aim to facilitate wellbeing among participants. More research is needed to determine their effectiveness. AIM: To systematically evaluate the effectiveness of group-based gardening interventions for increasing wellbeing and reducing symptoms of mental ill-health in adults. METHODS: A systematic review of Randomised Controlled Trials was conducted following the protocol submitted to PROSPERO (CRD42020162187). Studies reporting quantitative validated health and wellbeing outcomes of the community residing, adult populations (18+) were eligible for inclusion. RESULTS: 24 studies met inclusion criteria: 20 completed and four ongoing trials. Meta-analyses suggest these interventions may increase wellbeing and may reduce symptoms of depression, however, there was uncertainty in the pooled effects due to heterogeneity and unclear risk of bias for many studies. There were mixed results for other outcomes. RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS: Heterogeneity and small sample sizes limited the results. Poor reporting precluded meta-analysis for some studies. Initial findings for wellbeing and depression are promising and should be corroborated in further studies. The research area is active, and the results of the ongoing trials identified will add to the evidence base.

Urban community gardens in Cape Town, South Africa: navigating land access and land tenure security.

Land tenure security continues to pose a significant challenge to the sustainability of urban community gardens in global South cities. However, a few studies have explored the mechanisms that urban gardeners employ to facilitate land access and variations in land tenure security arrangements made with land owners in South African cities. This paper employs a mixed-methods research approach involving quantitative and qualitative techniques to examine how urban community gardens access land and land tenure security arrangements thereof. The study is based on questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and observations from 34 urban community food gardens in Cape Town selected through a combination of purposive and snowball sampling methods across selected low-income urban neighbourhoods. The findings reveal that although formalised land tenure security poses a sustainability threat to community gardens, perceived and de facto tenure present equally crucial forms of tenure which could be supported by state actors to promote urban agriculture. Reflecting on past efforts to formalise land tenure security, the article concludes that these efforts have failed due to poor coordination among government departments, and the complex and unclear processes of acquiring land. The paper recommends that while formalising land tenure arrangements may prove to be an effective solution, supporting institutions need to adopt a bottom-up approach to understand the gardener's needs and build on perceived and de facto land tenure security options to promote the sustainability of community gardening projects.

Impact of home food production on nutritional blindness, stunting, wasting, underweight and mortality in children: a systematic review and meta-analysis of controlled trials.

Vitamin A deficiency is highly prevalent and remains the major cause of nutritional blindness in children in low-and middle-income countries, despite supplementation programmes. Xeropthalmia (severe drying and thickening of the conjunctiva) is caused by vitamin A deficiency and leads to irreversible blindness. Vitamin A supplementation programmes effectively reduce vitamin A deficiency but many rural children are not reached. Home food production may help prevent rural children's vitamin A deficiency. We aimed to systematically review trials assessing effects of home food production (also called homestead food production and agricultural interventions) on xeropthalmia, nightblindness, stunting, wasting, underweight and mortality (primary outcomes). We searched Medline, Embase, Scopus, Cochrane CENTRAL and trials registers to February 2019. Inclusion of studies, data extraction and risk of bias were assessed independently in duplicate. Random-effects meta-analysis, sensitivity analyses, subgrouping and GRADE were used. We included 16 trials randomizing 2498 children, none reported xerophthalmia, night-blindness or mortality. Home food production may slightly reduce stunting (mean difference (MD) 0.13 (z-score), 95% CI 0.01 to 0.24), wasting (MD 0.05 (z-score), 95% CI -0.04 to 0.14) and underweight (MD 0.07 (z-score), 95% CI -0.01 to 0.15) in young children (all GRADE low-consistency evidence), and increase dietary diversity (standardized mean difference (SMD) 0.24, 95% CI 0.15 to 0.34). Home food production may usefully complement vitamin A supplementation for rural children. Large, long-duration trials with good randomization, allocation concealment and correct adjustment for clustering are needed to assess effectiveness of home food production on nutritional blindness in young children.

Projecting biodiversity benefits of conservation behavior-change programs.

Biodiversity loss is driven by human behavior, but there is uncertainty about the effectiveness of behavior-change programs in delivering benefits to biodiversity. To demonstrate their value, the biodiversity benefits and cost-effectiveness of behavior changes that directly or indirectly affect biodiversity need to be quantified. We adapted a structured decision-making prioritization tool to determine the potential biodiversity benefits of behavior changes. As a case study, we examined two hypothetical behavior-change programs--wildlife gardening and cat containment--by asking experts to consider the behaviors associated with these programs that directly and indirectly affect biodiversity. We assessed benefits to southern brown bandicoot (Isoodon obesulus) and superb fairy-wren (Malurus cyaneus) by eliciting from experts estimates of the probability of each species persisting in the landscape given a range of behavior-change scenarios in which uptake of the behaviors varied. We then compared these estimates to a business-as-usual scenario to determine the relative biodiversity benefit and cost-effectiveness of each scenario. Experts projected that the behavior-change programs would benefit biodiversity and that benefits would rise with increasing uptake of the target behaviors. Biodiversity benefits were also predicted to accrue through indirect behaviors, although experts disagreed about the magnitude of additional benefit provided. Scenarios that combined the two behavior-change programs were estimated to provide the greatest benefits to species and be most cost-effective. Our method could be used in other contexts and potentially at different scales and advances the use of prioritization tools to guide conservation behavior-change programs.

Proyección de los beneficios para la biodiversidad obtenidos de los programas de cambios de comportamiento de conservación Resumen La pérdida de la diversidad biológica es causada por el comportamiento humano, pero existe incertidumbre sobre la efectividad que tienen los programas de cambio de comportamiento para otorgar beneficios a la biodiversidad. Para demostrar el valor que poseen, los beneficios para la biodiversidad y la rentabilidad de los cambios de comportamiento que afectan directa o indirectamente a la biodiversidad necesitan ser cuantificados. Adaptamos una herramienta de priorización de toma de decisiones estructurada para determinar el potencial de los beneficios para la biodiversidad obtenidos de los cambios de comportamiento. Como estudio de caso, examinamos dos programas hipotéticos de cambio de comportamiento, la jardinería silvestre y la contención de gatos, mediante la petición a expertos de considerar los comportamientos asociados con estos programas que directa o indirectamente afectan a la biodiversidad. Evaluamos los beneficios para el bandicut café (Isoodon obeselus) y el reyezuelo supremo (Malurus cyaeneus) mediante la obtención de estimaciones de expertos de la probabilidad de que cada especie persista en el paisaje con una gama establecida de escenarios de cambios de comportamiento en los cuales la aceptación de los comportamientos varió. Después comparamos estas estimaciones con un escenario de situación normal para determinar el beneficio relativo para la biodiversidad y la rentabilidad de cada escenario. Los expertos proyectaron que los programas de cambio de comportamiento beneficiarían a la biodiversidad y que los beneficios aumentarían con la creciente aceptación de los comportamientos deseados. También se pronosticó que los beneficios se acumularían mediante comportamientos indirectos, aunque los expertos estuvieron en desacuerdo sobre la magnitud del beneficio adicional proporcionado. Se estimó que los escenarios que combinaron los dos programas de cambio de comportamiento proporcionarían el mayor beneficio para las especies y serían los más rentables. Nuestro método podría usarse en otros contextos y potencialmente a diferentes escalas y fomenta el uso de herramientas de priorización para orientar a los programas de cambios en el comportamiento de conservación.

Older phase 2 cardiac rehabilitation patients engaged in gardening maintained physical function during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study aimed to clarify the effects of gardening on hemodynamic response, rating of perceived exertion (RPE) during exercise, and body weight in patients in whom phase 2 cardiac rehabilitation (CR) was interrupted due to the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Among 76 outpatients participating in consecutive phase 2 CR in both periods from March to April and June to July 2020, which were before and after CR interruption, respectively, at Sanda City Hospital were enrolled. The inclusion criterion was outpatients whose CR was interrupted due to COVID-19. Patients under the age of 65 were excluded. We compared the data of hemodynamic response and RPE during exercise on the last day before interruption and the first day after interruption when aerobic exercise was performed at the same exercise intensity in the gardener group and the non-gardener group. Forty-one patients were enrolled in the final analysis. After CR interruption, the gardener group did not show any significant difference in all items, whereas the non-gardener group experienced significant increase in HR (Peak) (p = 0.004) and worsening of the Borg scale scores for both dyspnea and lower extremity fatigue (p = 0.039 and p = 0.009, respectively). Older phase 2 CR patients engaged in gardening did not show any deterioration in hemodynamic response or RPE during exercise, despite CR interruption and refraining from going outside. Gardening may be recommended as one of the activities that can maintain or improve physical function in older phase 2 CR patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.