Abstract
Integrated home garden interventions combine training in gardening practices with education about nutrition knowledge. Such interventions have been shown to improve nutrition behaviour in low income countries. However, to date rigorous evidence is lacking for their long-term impact. We test the impact of an integrated home garden intervention on vegetable production and consumption three years after the intervention ended. We analyse three rounds of survey data for 224 control and 395 intervention households in rural Bangladesh. Three years after the intervention, the average impact on vegetable production per household was 43 kg/year (+ 49% over baseline levels; p < 0.01), and the effect was not statistically different from the impact one year after the intervention, which demonstrates that impact was maintained in the long-term. The impact on the micronutrient supply for iron, zinc, folate and pro-vitamin A from home gardens was maintained in the long-term. These impacts may have been driven by the long-term improvements in women’s nutrition knowledge and gardening practices, explaining the sustainability of the behavioural nutrition change. We also identify positive impacts on women’s empowerment and women’s output market participation, highlighting how integrated programs, even if modest in scope, can be drivers of social change.
Highlights
The health, productivity and well-being of two billion people worldwide is compromised every year because theirBuilding women’s knowledge and skills to manage their home gardens could be an important pathway to improving household nutrition in the long-term
The study addresses a broader question in economic development by assessing if a development intervention, which is modest in scope and duration and which is focused on nutrition-sensitive agriculture, has the potential to induce long-term behaviour change among women who are strongly constrained by local cultural gender norms - and, if these norms themselves can be changed in such a way
This was done by regressing these production variables on a set of covariates including the number of gardening practices applied and the knowledge score, as well as control variables that may influence the decision to produce either type of crop including baseline quantities
Summary
The health, productivity and well-being of two billion people worldwide is compromised every year because their. The study provides original causal evidence on some social impacts beyond the nutrition and agricultural spheres, underscoring the importance of integrated home garden interventions on women’s empowerment and decision-making within the household. To substantiate our findings with regard to the mechanisms of the long-term impacts, we analysed the determinants of the variation in total quantity of vegetables produced as well as for leafy and non-leafy vegetable production separately This was done by regressing these production variables on a set of covariates including the number of gardening practices applied and the knowledge score, as well as control variables that may influence the decision to produce either type of crop including baseline quantities. This is true when comparing the intervention and control groups separately
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