Factors Influence to The Use of Urban Home Gardens for Householder’s Food Security in Galle Municipal Area in Sri Lanka

Abstract

According to the UN projection, two-third of the world's population is expected to live in urban areas and the global food production will have to increase by 70% to meet the average daily caloric requirement in year 2050. With the increase of urbanization, the available resources as land, water and labour for food production are becoming scarce in urban centers. Reducing food wastage, addressing unsustainable consumption, creating rural-urban supply chains and supporting urban agriculture will strength the urban food security. there is much attention towards the use of home gardens as a strategy to enhance the household food security. Home garden provides easy access to fresh vegetables, fruits and leads to improve the nutrition, health and create job opportunities for the inhabitants. Home gardening was a primitive practice in Sri Lanka and ensured the stability of food security at the village level. But limited case studies have conducted to assess the use of home garden to address the food security in urban municipalities in Sri Lanka. The objective of this paper is to identify the factors effect to the use of home gardens for food production by urban dwellers in Sri Lanka. Every housing unit (n=280) in the selected urban residential zone were surveyed to collect the data and regression analysis was applied to analyze the data. Findings from our quantitative research showed that only 3 percent of the residences are highly used their gardens for food production and they produce 50 percent of food supply from their garden. The study revealed the factors such as land extent, residence’s perceptions about advantages receiving from farming in their gardens, occupational status (housewives are not occupied) and their educational level (higher than degree) are significantly influenced to the use of home gardens for householders food production in urban cities in Sri Lanka.