Opportunities and challenges of adopting home garden agroforestry practices in Ethiopia: A review

Abstract

Home gardens enable farmers to secure their food availability, mitigate environmental change, increase consistency of social-cultural values and protect species provenance. On the other hands, they conserve biodiversity and sequester carbon, and improve a biogeochemical process even if the home garden has multifunctional values. The objective of this review is to identify the factors hindering the adoption of home garden agroforestry practices in Ethiopia and to show existing opportunities to scale-up the practice. The dominant species in various home gardens are economically appreciated as they fulfill a demand. Women are more engaged than men in home garden activities, which create job opportunities and foster social acceptance. There is also available indigenous and scientific knowledge that has to be managed and administered by concerned stakeholders. Many researchers found that there were high species diversity, suitable environments, good experience, available products, a willingness of women to participate and important component interdependence with flexible arrangements, but small farm size and discouraged tenure of land and tree were major impediments. The responsible bodies should undertake positive actions like promote community services, researchers on home garden agroforestry. awareness creation, scale-up of appropriate home garden components, provide support through cultivating good and multipurpose hybrid varieties, and formulate policies and strategies that encourage farmers to make home gardens an alternative to secure food stability.