Impacts of Nutritional Gardens on Health of Communal Households; A Case Study of Nyanga North District

Abstract

The premise of this study was to evaluate the contributions of nutritional gardening on household nutritional status. This was considered important in providing a feedback to promoters and users of nutritional gardens. This study used secondary baseline data and primary data on nutritional status before and after adoption of gardening from a sample of 40 households. A comparative study design using a t-test was then effected to compare the nutritional status before and after practicing garderning. The study revealed that there was a statistically significant difference on the nutritional status of households before and after adoption of nutritional gardens. On average, the weight-for-age for children under five years of age was higher (90%) after nutritional gardens than before 73%, prevalence of illnesses was lower (21%) after nutritional gardens than before (71%), chronically ill adults were higher (30%) before than after (27%) and malnutrition in children was lower (5%) after than before (13%). Promoters and users of nutritional gardening such as government, non governmental organizations, private sector and farmers were encouraged to promote the concept in order to improve households nutritional status.