ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF HOMEGARDEN BIODIVERSITY IN ASSAM
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Date
2021
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Abstract
Home garden as the name says is usually a small area of land
surrounding a household, where members of the family grows varieties of vegetables,
medicinal crops, fruits trees and trees which can be ornamental and so on and is
commonly known by the name baari in Assam, in rural household apart from growing
vegetables and fruits in their home garden they rear live stocks, cattle’s and fishes as
well hence there exist a noticeable biodiversity in a baari, however in urban residents
misses this opportunity and is limited to fruits and vegetables for meet the family food
requirements . Home gardening is also known by the name homestead gardening as it
surrounds the home of the household. Almost every household may it be a rural
household or an urban dwelling household both has a garden either their vegetable
garden or kitchen garden which is a miniature form of farm plots growing vegetables
and herbs in small area and so in small scale. Household grows vegetables, herbs and
also fruits in pots and containers to meet their day to day culinary needs. It is often a
structured space having a visual appeal all the year round. In today’s human civilization
when there are constant threat to the climate and environment home garden is a boon as
it serves the environment with greeneries which provides fresh air, bears with the
pollution by reducing carbon emission, provides fresh vegetables grown all organically,
usually using compost manures, because it is practiced in small scale so the use of
chemical fertilizers are negligible. It is also a source of rare and extinct varieties of
fruits and herbs which have established medicinal properties. Therefore, to cope up with
environmental issues urban civilization practices roof top gardening unlike their rural
counterparts as small step to a big environmental issue and also to meet with their
nutrition requirement.
The present study is an attempt to assess the existing status of
biodiversity in the home gardens of few randomly selected villages in five Agro
climatic zones of Assam. All the five Agro climatic zones have different characteristics
in terms of rainfall pattern, terrain and soil, so does the biodiversity, however the most
commonly found biodiversity component have been studied and assessed in terms of
economical analysis where in the species richness, its abundance, and its density is
studied, the economics of resources used in the home gardens, the role of gender in
management of the home gardens, and assessing the contribution of homegarden
biodiversity in livelihood.
This study was conducted in randomly selected homegardens of Jorhat
(Upper Brahmaputra Valley Zone), Morigaon (Central Assam Zone), Karbi Anlong
(Hill Zone), Sonitpur (North Bank Plain Zone), and kamrup district (Lowe
Brahmaputra Valley Zone) of Assam. An inventory of crop species and livestock
diversity component in home gardens was prepared and a comparative study using
Shannon- wiener index the diversity of species was evaluated and the relative
importance value, density and abundance was calculated for the selected home gardens
from five different Agro climatic zones. The study categorised the composition of
species as components into trees, vegetables, fruits, spices, medicinal plants, and
livestock for biodiversity inventory. Thus excluding for example ornamental species,
which do not relate immediately to livelihood.
A total of 144 plants species belonging to 64 families were recorded
from the survey of 290 gardens across the five selected Agro climatic zones of Assam.
An average of 34 plant species were found in each homegardens surveyed for the study
which included vegetable species, tree species, medicinal plant species, and spices and
condiments. The smallest homegardens in the present study had a Shannon index with
1.30, but they were not significantly different from the indices reported for the medium
and large (1.21, 1.24, respectively), while the total of 144 species recorded in the study.
When the production and consumption ratio was studied across the Agro climatic zones,
it is seen that the production and consumption ratio was found to be the highest in the
homegardens of the North Bank Plain Zone which was 0.76, followed by the
homegardens of the Lower Brahmaputra Valley Zone which was 0.72, respectively.
Usually incomes from smaller homegardens is less as compared to the
larger homegarden because larger garden have profit motive with higher composition
of commercial plant species while in smaller gardens composition of commercial crops
is less. The percentage contribution of homegardens towards household’s average
annual gross income was 43.33 per cent.
Female headed homegardens were significantly higher in size than male
headed homegargens in the small sized homegardens and medium sized homegardens in
this study. Among the three homegarden size categories 53.00 per cent were female
headed in small sized homegardens 59.00 per cent female headed in medium sized
homegardens and 57.00 per cent in large sized homegardens.