Adoption and Impact of Kitchen Garden on Food and Nutritional Security of Farming Households in Tanzania.

This article analyzes factors influencing the adoption of kitchen gardens and food and nutrition security implications of kitchen gardens on farming households. For this, the Per Capita Kilocalorie Intake (PKCI) and Food Consumption Score (FCS) were applied as food and nutrition security indicators. This paper is based on cross-sectional data that include a sample of 825 households from two districts in Tanzania. Endogenous Switching Regression is employed to determine factors influencing the adoption of a kitchen garden and its impact on food and nutrition security of the involved farming households. The results of the analysis indicate that the adoption of a kitchen garden increased with the family size (adult equivalent), credit use, access to information, districts (location), and the usage of other water sources for agriculture in addition to rainfed. It decreased with total land size and TLU. While the adoption of a kitchen garden significantly increased adopters' FCS by 1.45 or 2.96% and non-adopters' FCS by 1.26 or 2.69%. In contrast, the adoption of a kitchen garden significantly reduced non-adopters' PKCI by 101.18 or 3.92% but it does not have significant impact for adopters. Therefore, policymakers and development organizations should further promote and scale-up the kitchen garden intervention in order to use it as a tool to enhance the household's food and nutrition security.

Plantas de cobertura de inverno em sistema de plantio direto de hortaliças sem herbicidas: efeitos sobre plantas espontâneas e na produção de tomate / Winter cover crops in no-tillage system whitout herbicides: effects on weed biomass and tomato yield

O objetivo deste trabalho foi eliminar o uso de herbicidas nas lavouras de tomate, em sistema de plantio direto (PD). Para conhecer a melhor combinação de plantas de cobertura (PC) de inverno para o controle de plantas espontâneas (PE) e a produção do tomate, conduziu-se experimento a campo na Estação Experimental da Empresa de Pesquisa Agropecuária e Extensão Rural (EPAGRI) de Ituporanga, Santa Catarina (SC). Foram testadas a aveia preta (Avena strigosa Schreb), a ervilhaca (Vicia villosa Roth) e o nabo forrageiro (Raphanus sativus L.) em sistemas de cobertura solteiros e consorciados. O tomate, variedade Márcia-EPAGRI, foi tutorado e conduzido sob sistema de fertirrigação. Os melhores tratamentos na produção de matéria seca (MS) de PC foram aveia + ervilhaca e aveia solteira, seguidos de ervilhaca + nabo, aveia + nabo e aveia + ervilhaca + nabo. Entre os cinco melhores resultados na produção de MS, apenas aveia não foi um tratamento consorciado. No controle de plantas espontâneas, destacaram-se os tratamentos aveia + nabo, aveia + ervilhaca e aveia + ervilhaca + nabo, seguidos de aveia. Não ocorreram diferenças estatísticas entre tratamentos no rendimento total do tomate e na produção comercial.

With the aim of eliminating herbicide use in no-tillage tomato production, an experiment was carried out to evaluate the best combination of winter cover crops for weed control and tomato production at the Ituporanga Experimental Station. Oat (Avena strigosa Schreb), vetch (Vicia villosa Roth) and fodder radish (Raphanus sativus L.) were grown in monoculture and in mixes. The tomato variety ‘Márcia-EPAGRI’ was stake-trained and grown under fertirrigation. The highest values in above-ground dry biomass were obtained by oat+vetch and oat monoculture, followed by vetch+radish, oat+radish, and oat+vetch+radish. Treatments with oats had the best performances in controlling resident vegetation, while vetch was associated with the worst performances. There were no significant differences between treatments for total yield and marketable fruit production.