home gardens in three mountain regions of the iberian...

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Home Gardens in Three MountainRegions of the Iberian Peninsula:Description, Motivation for Gardening,and Gross Financial BenefitsVictoria Reyes-García a , Laura Aceituno b , Sara Vila c , LauraCalvet-Mir d , Teresa Garnatje e , Alexandra Jesch f , Juan JoséLastra c , Montserrat Parada g , Montserrat Rigat g , Joan Vallès g &Manuel Pardo-De-Santayana ba ICREA and Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals, UniversitatAutònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spainb Departamento de Biología (Botánica), Universidad Autónoma deMadrid, C/ Darwin 2. Campus de Cantoblanco, Madrid, Spainc Departamento de Biología de Organismos y Sistemas, Universidadde Oviedo, Campus del Cristo, Oviedo, Spaind Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals, Universitat Autònomade Barcelona, Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spaine Institut Botànic de Barcelona (CSIC-ICUB), Passeig del Migdia s.n.,Parc de Montjuïc, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spainf Institute for Organic Farming, University for Natural Resources andApplied Life Sciences Vienna, Vienna, Austriag Laboratori de Botànica, Facultat de Farmàcia, Universitat deBarcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

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To cite this article: Victoria Reyes-García, Laura Aceituno, Sara Vila, Laura Calvet-Mir, TeresaGarnatje, Alexandra Jesch, Juan José Lastra, Montserrat Parada, Montserrat Rigat, Joan Vallès& Manuel Pardo-De-Santayana (2012): Home Gardens in Three Mountain Regions of the IberianPeninsula: Description, Motivation for Gardening, and Gross Financial Benefits, Journal of SustainableAgriculture, 36:2, 249-270

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Journal of Sustainable Agriculture, 36:249–270, 2012Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 1044-0046 print/1540-7578 onlineDOI: 10.1080/10440046.2011.627987

Home Gardens in Three MountainRegions of the Iberian Peninsula: Description,

Motivation for Gardening, and GrossFinancial Benefits

VICTORIA REYES-GARCÍA,1 LAURA ACEITUNO,2 SARA VILA,3

LAURA CALVET-MIR,4 TERESA GARNATJE,5 ALEXANDRA JESCH,6

JUAN JOSÉ LASTRA,3 MONTSERRAT PARADA,7

MONTSERRAT RIGAT,7 JOAN VALLÈS,7 andMANUEL PARDO-DE-SANTAYANA2

1ICREA and Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals, Universitat Autònoma deBarcelona, Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain

2Departamento de Biología (Botánica), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid,C/ Darwin 2. Campus de Cantoblanco, Madrid, Spain

3Departamento de Biología de Organismos y Sistemas, Universidad de Oviedo,Campus del Cristo, Oviedo, Spain

4Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona,Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain

5Institut Botànic de Barcelona (CSIC-ICUB), Passeig del Migdia s.n.,Parc de Montjuïc, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

6Institute for Organic Farming, University for Natural Resources andApplied Life Sciences Vienna, Vienna, Austria

7Laboratori de Botànica, Facultat de Farmàcia, Universitat de Barcelona,Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

Previous research on tropical home gardens stresses theirecological, economic, and social functions. This article a) describeshome gardens (n = 252) in three rural areas of the IberianPeninsula, b) explores motivations for gardening, and c) com-putes the gross financial benefits of crops in home gardens.Different from tropical gardens, the studied gardens specialize inedible plants, species with other uses being marginally present.Motivations for gardening relate more to people’s way of living (i.e.,

Address correspondence to Victoria Reyes-García, ICREA Researcher, Institut de Ciènciai Tecnologia Ambientals, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193 Bellatera, Barcelona,Spain. E-mail: [email protected]

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250 V. Reyes-García et al.

hobby, keeping traditions) than to economic reasons. The aver-age gross financial value of home gardens in our sample is 1,691C/year/gardener, equivalent to almost three minimal monthlysalaries in Spain. Home gardens seem to also provide noneconomicbenefits that help explain the maintenance of those agroecosystems.

KEYWORDS Catalan Pyrenees, Central Asturias, gross value,kitchen gardens, Sierra Norte de Madrid, vegetables

Over recent decades, interest has grown in home gardens, defined hereas relatively small cultivated plots usually devoted in whole or in partto the growing of herbs, fruits, or vegetables for household consump-tion (adapted from Kumar and Nair 2004). Studies on home gardens havestressed the ecological, economic, and social functions of gardening. Forexample, researchers have documented characteristics and functions ofhome gardens in tropical rural areas of Central and South America (Aguilar-Stoen et al. 2009; Albuquerque et al. 2005; Del Angel-Perez and Mendoza2004; Perrault-Archambault and Coomes 2008;Vázquez-García 2008), Africa(Tchatat et al. 1996; Drescher et al. 1999; High and Shackleton 2000;Maroyi 2009), and Asia (Cai et al. 2004; Ali 2005; Abdoellah et al. 2006;Sunwar et al. 2006) finding that with a focus mostly on edible crops,tropical home gardens contribute to sustain basic households needs with-out generating environmental degradation (Torquebiau 1992; Gajaseni andGajaseni 1999; Nair 2001; Watson and Eyzaguirre 2002; Del Angel-Perezand Mendoza 2004). Research on the ecological functions of home gar-dens has also found that home gardens improve nutrient cycling (Kumarand Nair 2004), serve as refuges for endangered species (Gessler et al.1998), and contribute to in situ conservation of genetic and species diver-sity (Sunwar et al. 2006; Kabir and Webb 2008; Perrault-Archambault andCoomes 2008; Scales and Marsden 2008; Aguilar-Stoen et al. 2009). Researchon the economic functions of home gardens in tropical regions suggeststhat home gardens are efficient in cash and energy flows (Cai et al. 2004),have higher productivity than other agricultural systems (Jensen 1993), andgenerally contribute to food security through the generation of productsfor household consumption (Dharmasena and Wijeratne 1996; Wezel andBender 2003). In some cases, home gardens also contribute to householdcash income through the commercialization of surplus fruits and vegeta-bles (Drescher et al. 1999; Wezel and Bender 2003; Ali 2005; Motiur et al.2006; Pandey et al. 2007; de la Cerda and Mukul 2008; Maroyi 2009). Last,research on the social functions of home gardens has found that these agroe-cosystems provide an important space for social relations (Shillington 2008)and contribute to household health (Finerman and Sackett 2003; Del Angel-Perez and Mendoza 2004). Similarly, researchers have also noticed that

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Home Gardens of the Iberian Peninsula 251

home gardens in cities of industrialized nations contribute to communitydevelopment (Saldivar-Tanaka and Krasny 2004) and impact food choice,social skills, and nutritional knowledge (Lautenschlager and Smith 2007) ofhome garden holders. In sum, research on home gardens suggests that thisform of agriculture provides a myriad of ecological, economic, and socialbenefits.

Despite the vast literature on the topic on tropical countries and thewidespread existence of home gardens in industrial nations, the academicinterest on home gardens in temperate areas is limited and recent (seeCleveland et al. 1985; Agelet et al. 2000; Vogl-Lukasser and Vogl 2002, 2004;Thompson et al. 2003; Vogl and Vogl-Lukasser 2003; Morton et al. 2008;Perry and Nawaz 2008; Jesch 2009; Rigat et al. 2009; Aceituno-Mata 2010;Bassullu and Tolunay 2010; Reyes-García et al. 2010; Calvet-Mir et al. 2011).The research presented here aims to contribute to this body of knowl-edge by a) providing a description of temperate vegetable home gardensof the Iberian Peninsula, an understudied agroecosystem; b) exploring themotivations for gardening among home garden managers in rural areas ofdeveloped countries; and c) estimating the gross financial importance ofthese agroecosystems. Since our data only allows us to estimate the gross,and not the net, financial value of home gardens, results presented here arepartial, and they should be taken as the first step in improving our under-standing of the financial value of these agroecosystems in rural areas ofdeveloped countries.

STUDY SETTING

We conducted research in three rural areas of the Iberian Peninsula: theCatalan Pyrenees, Central Asturias (Cantabrian Range), and Sierra Norte deMadrid (Central Range) (Figure 1). Although the three areas have differ-ent languages and distinctive cultural background, geographical and historicsimilarities allow comparisons between home gardens in the three regions.Specifically, the three areas are similar in that a) they are in mountain orpre-mountain regions, b) over the last decades they have experienced a pop-ulation exodus to nearby urban and industrial centers, and c) over the sameperiod, the overall importance of the agricultural activity has decreased,increasing the importance of the tertiary sector and construction. Table 1summarizes the main characteristics of the three studied areas.

Until the mid-twentieth century,the economic system of rural areas inthe Iberian Peninsula was dominated by un-mechanized agricultural activ-ities (Naredo 2004). During the second half of the twentieth century, theintroduction of new crops, the mechanization of farm activities, and laterthe European Union agrarian policy led—in the three study areas—to theconcentration of agricultural activities in the most productive lands and

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FIGURE 1 Map of the studied areas.

TABLE 1 Characteristics of the study zones

Characteristics Catalan Pyrenees Central AsturiasSierra Norte de

Madrid

Ecosystem Mountainous andpre-mountainous

Mountainous Mountainous

Elevation (masl) From 729 to 1422 From 150 to 600 From 600 to 2000Annual rainfall (mm) From 800 to 1200 1066 From 600 to 1000Mean temperature

range (◦C)16 to 8 17.3 to 7.5 28.5 to 1

Main economicactivities

Tourism, livestockfarming, agriculture

Mining, industry,livestock farming

Tourism,construction,livestock farming

produced a migration flow to urban areas, resulting in the abandonmentof less productive lands and activities (Naredo 2004). For example, theweather and topography of the Catalan Pyrenees, one of our study sitesin the southern flanks of the Pyrenees, coupled with the process of agricul-tural mechanization caused a progressive abandonment of cultivable landover the twentieth century. The difficulty and costs of mechanizing agri-culture in areas with significant slopes resulted in the transformation ofotherwise cultivated areas to permanent grazing lands or forests (DireccióGeneral de PlanificacióiAcció Territorial 2000). Central Asturias, in the north-west of the Iberian Peninsula, suffered a similar process. Cereal cultivation

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dominated the agricultural sector in Central Asturias until the first half ofthe twentieth century(Bosque-Maruel and Vilá-Valentí 1990), but the spe-cialization of the region in dairy farming resulted in the transformationof agricultural lands into meadows (Rodríguez and Menéndez 2005). Theimposition of a milk quota system and strict hygiene and technology stan-dards that occurred after the incorporation of Spain into the EuropeanUnion (1986) forced small dairies to close, accentuating the concentrationof land property. Nowadays many areas in Central Asturias are devotedto pastures, prairies, tree crops such as eucalyptus, or have simply beenabandoned and reverted to scrubland.Similarly, over the last decades agri-culture has lost its predominance in our third study region, the SierraNorte de Madrid. Traditionally, the most important economic activities ofthe area were cereal cultivation in rotation with pastures for livestock farm-ing and subsistence agriculture (Barrios et al. 1992; Aceituno-Mata 2010).The proximity of the city of Madrid has led to the almost complete aban-donment of the agricultural activity, for most residents in the area work inthe service and construction sectors, dependent of the economic activity ofMadrid.

Secondary sources and our own ethnographic information suggest thathome gardens have historically been an integral part of the agriculturalsystems of the three studied regions (Barrios et al. 1992; Rodríguez andMenéndez 2005; Rigat et al. 2009; Aceituno-Mata 2010). As in other regionsof the world, home gardens in the Iberian Peninsula were traditionally ori-ented to household consumption. Home gardens have traditionally beenimportant in the three regions of study mainly because villages in thoseareas lacked regular access to markets. For example, snow diminishes themobility of villagers in the highest areas of the Catalan Pyrenees during thewinter season, discontinuing weekly markets and impeding villagers’ accessto market towns for the provision of goods. Similarly, the scattered settle-ment pattern in Central Asturias increases the costs of transport for fruits andvegetables, which has resulted in sporadic local markets. In the three studyregions home gardens persist nowadays as the most characteristic form ofagriculture.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A multidisciplinary team of social and natural scientists collected data forthis article during February through October 2008. During fieldwork, sixresearchers lived in the study sites and participated in the regular activi-ties of the villages. Notably, they accompanied people in their leisure andwork activities. Participant observation allowed the understanding of the dif-ferent activities and tasks around gardening. During fieldwork, researchersalso conducted open-ended interviews with men and women about the

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management of home gardens. We use this information to contextualize thequantitative findings of the research.

Sampling

Our sampling strategy proceeded in two steps: selection of villages andselection of home gardens. We first selected villages that were representativeof the environmental and socioeconomic variability of each area. We thenselected between 20 and 100% of the gardens of each village for the study.The percentage of gardens selected in a village depended on the total num-ber of active home gardens in the village. Because villages do not havehomegarden censuses, we used a combination of snowball and purposivesampling strategies (Bernard 2006) to ensure that we captured variabilityin the types of home gardens selected for the study. For example, once wehad an accurate list of gardens, we selected irrigated and non-irrigated homegardens, or organic and nonorganic home gardens. After we had identifiedpotential gardens for the study, we requested the voluntary participation ofthe primary garden manager, defined as the person who reportedly realizedmost of the work on the home garden and made decisions about its manage-ment. Because some households had more than one garden, we included inthe study all the gardens managed by households in the sample.

We interviewed a total of 202 home garden managers, 121 men and81 women, managing a total of 252 home gardens in 58 villages: 37 villageswhere settled in the Catalan Pyrenees, 11 in Central Asturias, and 10 in theSierra Norte de Madrid. Villages in the Catalan Pyrenees belong to Vall Fosca,Alta Vall del Ter, and Alt Empordà areas, respectively located in the districts(or “comarques”) of Pallars Jussà, Ripollès, and Alt Empordà. Villages in theSierra Norte the Madrid belong to the district (or “comarca”) Sierra Norte.Villages in Central Asturias belong to the districts (or “concejos”) of Riosa,Morcín, Lena, Mieres, Oviedo, and Gijón.

Methods of Data Collection

INDIVIDUAL SURVEY

We administered a survey to the main garden manager. The survey includedquestions on individual and household attributes such as sex, age, educa-tion level, and household size (or number of people living in the householdat the moment of the interview).We also asked respondents about the pri-mary garden management practices, including a) type of fertilization (i.e.,organic, inorganic), b) watering system (i.e., rain fed, canal), c) weedingsystem (i.e., manual, chemical), and d) pest control system (i.e., manual,chemical). Finally, we asked a general question about the final destination

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of products grown in home gardens. Specifically, we asked subjects to esti-mate the amount (all = 100%, most = 75%, half = 50%, a small amount =25%, and none = 0%) of home garden products devoted to i) consumption,ii)gift-giving, and iii) sale.

In a second part of the interview, we asked informants to list all theirreasons for growing a home garden. Specifically we asked: “Why do yougrow a home garden? Please, tell me all the reasons why you do so.” Weallowed informants to give as many reasons as they wanted and recordedtheir responses verbatim.

GARDEN INVENTORY

We visited each garden a total of three times. At the beginning of the sowingseason, during our first visit, we requested the main gardener to accompanyus to each of his or her home gardens. We measured the dimensions ofeach garden (in m2). We then asked the gardener to identify all the culti-vated plants present in the home garden at the time of the visit. We recordedthe local name and the main use (i.e., edible, medicinal, ornamental) ofeach plant species as reported by the gardener. We measured the cultivatedsurface of each crop present in the home garden, also in m2. In the two sub-sequent visits we noted the presence and surface area of crops not presentduring previous visits.

We determined the scientific names of the crops in the field or in thelaboratory. We took pictures of all the species. We contrasted the pictures ofthose crops that we could not identify in the field with herbarium voucherspreviously collected by the authors. We took vouchers of plants that couldnot be identified in the field or with the assistance of photos. Vouchers wereidentified and deposited in the herbarium of the Centre de Documentacióde Biodiversitat Vegetal, Universitat de Barcelona (BCN), in the herbariumof the Departamento de Biología de Organismos y Sistemas, Universidad deOviedo (FCO) or in the herbarium of the Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid,CSIC (MA). We identified crops at the species level and when possible at thesubspecies or variety levels.

VEGETABLES PRICE SURVEY

Twice during the period of research, at the beginning and at the end, wevisited three local markets in each of the study regions and obtained theprice of fruits and vegetables present in home gardens in our sample (2 times× 3 local markets × 3 areas = 18 prices per each crop). When possible, weobtained the prices in kg. For crops that are sold in bunches (e.g., Alliumporrum), we weighed three bunches in local stores of each area to obtainthe average weight of a bunch, so we could estimate the price per kg.

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Methods of Data Analysis

We analyzed information on manager’s and garden’s characteristics usingdescriptive statistics. We used an analysis of variance (ANOVA) to comparegarden’s and gardener’s characteristics across the three regions.

To analyze people’s motivations to grow a vegetable garden, we codedtextual answers to the question “Why do you grow a home garden?” intofive categories that capture the range of reasons given by informants: a) asa pastime, b) because garden products are of better quality than commercialproducts, c) for economic reasons, d) because of tradition, e) as a form ofphysical exercise. We analyzed this information using descriptive statistics.

To estimate the gross financial value of home gardens we followed foursteps. First, we discarded wild species, seasoning, and non-edible plants(e.g., medicinal, ornamental) from our lists of species found in home gar-dens. Second, we estimated crop productivity by multiplying the surfacesown with a crop (recorded in garden inventories) by the average pro-ductivity of the crop reported in the literature for the Iberian Peninsula.Specifically, we used data reported by Agustí (2004), Carcelén-Fernándezet al. (1988), and Navarro (2001) for the productivity of fruit trees and datareported by Mainardi-Fazio (2006) and Maroto-Borrego(1992) for the pro-ductivity of vegetables. Third, we calculated the gross financial value ofeach crop by multiplying the estimated productivity by the average retailprice of the crop during the period of research. To assign a price to a crop:i) For crops that had a local market price in the same region where it wasreported, we assigned the average price in that region (average price of thespecies in three local stores at two points of time). ii) For crops that didnot have a local market price in the region where they were reported, buthad a market price in any or in the two other regions, we assigned theaverage price in the other regions. iii) For crops that were not commercial-ized in local markets in the studied areas, we assigned prices from stores insurrounding cities. Finally, we defined the gross financial value of a homegarden as the sum of the estimated value of all its crops with a market price.

RESULTS

Description of Gardeners and Home Gardens

The information in Table 2 suggests that in the three regions home gardeningis mainly conducted by retired people, since the average age of the mainhome garden manager was 66.7 years, which is above the official retirementage of 65 years. Moreover, home gardening in mountain areas of the IberianPeninsula is a slightly predominant male activity in Central Asturias (68% ofmanagers) and the Sierra Norte de Madrid (74%), whereas is equally popularamong men (49%) and women in the Catalan Pyrenees. About one half ofthe sample had only completed primary education and only about 14% of

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the sample had had any education beyond high school, although the overalllevel of education changes across regions.

Home gardens in our sample had an average surface of 585 m2 mostof it (422 m2) under cultivation (Table 2), although there were important

TABLE 2 Comparison of a) manager’s characteristics, b) garden’s physical characteristics, andc) garden’s management practices (by study area)

CatalanPyrenees

CentralAsturias

Sierra Nortede Madrid Total

Number ofvillages

37 11 10 58

Tenders’ characteristicsNumber of

gardeners103 41 58 202

Avg Avg Avg AvgAge of primary

gardener65.6 67.6 68.2 66.7

Number ofgardens pergardener∗∗∗

1.1 1.4 1.4 1.3

Household size 2.4 2.7 2.7 2.6% % % %

Male primarygardenersˆˆˆ

50.9 69.6 71.4 60.0

Gardenerswho have completedˆˆˆ:No education 10.5 0.0 15.5 9.8Primary school 62.3 51.8 36.9 51.6Secondary school 2.6 25.0 33.3 17.7High school 5.3 10.7 5.9 6.7Education above

high school18.2 12.5 8.3 14.2

Garden’s characteristicsNumber of

gardens114 54 84 252

Avg Avg Avg AvgArea total∗∗∗, m2 357 509 945 585Area under

cultivation∗∗∗,m2

277 402 632 422

Distance to thehousehold∗∗∗, m

516 2, 555 524 968

# % # % # % # %

Number of species∗∗ 28.6 21.8 26.0 26.2Edible∗∗ 20.5 71.6 16.7 76.4 21.9 84.0 20.1 76.6Ornamental∗∗∗ 4.8 16.9 2.3 10.3 2.0 7.8 3.3 12.7Seasoning 1.1 3.9 0.9 4.1 1.3 5.1 1.1 4.3Medicinal∗∗∗ 1.7 5.9 0.5 2.1 0.2 0.6 0.9 3.5Animal feed∗∗∗ 0.2 0.8 1.2 5.6 0.2 0.9 0.5 1.7Other uses 0.3 1.0 0.3 1.5 0.4 1.5 0.2 0.8

(Continued)

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TABLE 2 (Continued)

Management practices % % % %Type of fertilizationˆˆManure 95.6 83.9 94.0 92.5Inorganic 3.5 16.7 3.6 6.30Nothing 0.9 0.0 2.4 1.18

Watering systemˆˆˆRain feed only 24.6 10.7 3.6 14.6Canal 21.1 0.0 90.5 39.4Manual (watering cans, tubes) 30.7 62.5 6.0 29.5Mechanical (dripping, sprinkling) 16.7 26.8 0.0 13.4Other 7.0 0.0 0.0 3.1

Weeding systemManual 95.6 96.4 96.4 96.1Herbicide 3.5 3.6 0.0 2.4Other 0.9 0.0 3.6 1.6

Pest control systemˆˆˆNothing/manual 36.0 26.8 15.5 27.6Mineral/ecologic 21.1 3.6 15.5 15.3Chemical 43.0 69.6 69.1 57.1

Products’ destination50% or more of the production oriented to:Consumption 93.9 92.9 90.5 92.5Giftˆˆˆ 39.5 41.1 17.9 32.7Sale 4.4 3.6 7.1 5.1

∗∗∗, ∗∗, and ∗results of ANOVA Prob>F < 0.01, Prob > F < 0.05 and Prob > F < 0.10ˆˆˆ, ˆˆ, and ˆ χ2, Pr < 0.01, Pr < 0.05 and Pr < 0.10.

regional differences. On average, home gardens in Sierra Norte de Madridhad a cultivated surface of 632m2, whereas home gardens in the CatalanPyrenees had a cultivated surface of 277m2. Results from an ANOVA testshow that the differences on the total surface cultivated between areas aresignificant in statistical terms (Prob > F < 0.001). The average home gardenin our sample was within walking distance (less than 1 km) from the mainhouse of the manager, although gardens in Central Asturias were significantlyfurther from the manager’s house (avg = 2.6 km) than gardens in the othertwo regions (Prob > F < 0.001).

We found that home gardens in our sample had an average of 26 taxa,but we also found a large variation in the number of taxa between gardens(SD = 16). Most plants grown in the sampled home gardens were edible(20 taxa, or 77%). The proportion of edible species was larger in SierraNorte de Madrid (84%) than in the other two regions. Home gardens alsocontained an average of three ornamental plants (13% of the taxa) and oneseasoning species (4%). The proportion of ornamental (17%) and medicinal(6%) plants was larger in the Catalan Pyrenees than in the two other areas.Home gardens in Central Asturias display the largest share of taxa for animalfeed (6%).

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Ethnographic observations and survey data suggest that the studied gar-dens have an overall high dependence on labor and a low dependence onagricultural inputs. Thus, work in home gardens (including sowing, weeding,and watering) is still mainly done by hand or with the help of simple toolslike small hoes, rakes, spades, and forks. For example, 96.1% of the gardensin our sample were weeded manually, versus 2.4 % that managed weedswith herbicides. Soil fertility is mostly maintained by the use of manure fromthe farm cattle, sheep, horses, or hens (92.5%of the gardens).

We did not find differences in weeding management practices in gar-dens in the three areas of study, but we found differences in the type offertilization, watering, and pest control management systems. More gardensin the Catalan Pyrenees and the Sierra Norte were fertilized with organicinputs than gardens in Central Asturias. Conversely, almost all gardens inSierra Norte depended on canal irrigation, versus the prevalence of rain andmanual and mechanical watering systems in the other areas (Pr chi = 0.001).Chemical pest control methods were used more often in Central Asturias andSierra Norte than in the Catalan Pyrenees (Pr chi = 0.001).

Regarding product’s destination, in 92.5% of the cases, informantsreported that 50% of garden’s production or more went to household con-sumption. There were no significant differences in product’s destinationacross the three regions of study.

Motivations for Gardening

In general people reported keeping home gardens for more than one reason.Less than one half of the managers (47%) gave only one reason to keep ahome garden, the rest giving two or more of the reasons listed in Table 3.

Across the three study areas, most people (74%) argued that they tenda garden because they like the activity, thus, considering gardening as apastime. Almost one half of the informants (43%) also argued that theymaintain a home garden because the garden’s fruits and vegetables are ofbetter quality than commercial ones. This reason seemed to be more impor-tant for respondents in the Catalan Pyrenees (58%) than for respondents in

TABLE 3 Motivations for gardening

CatalanPyreneesN = 103

CentralAsturiasN = 41

Sierra Norte deMadrid N = 58

TotalN = 202

Pastime 67.0 82.9 79.3 73.8Product’s quality 58.2 12.2 36.2 42.6Economic reasons 34.0 24.4 24.1 29.2Tradition 11.6 17.1 24.1 16.3Physical exercise 2.9 31.7 8.6 10.4

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Sierra Norte de Madrid (36%) and Central Asturias (12%). Less than one thirdof the people in the sample (29%) argued that they keep a home gardenbecause home gardens provide some sort of economic benefit. Other (i.e.,less reported) reasons to keep a home garden were to continue an activ-ity that has been traditionally conducted in the area (16%) and as a formof physical exercise (10%), a reason relatively more important for respon-dents in Central Asturias than for respondents in the other two regions ofstudy.

Gross Financial Value of Crops Found in Home Gardens

Table 4 shows the relative presence (% of gardeners growing the crops), theaverage surface area grown (m2/gardener), and the estimated gross financialvalue (C/gardener) of the most common edible crops grown in the studiedhome gardens.

We found 120 edible taxa in the sampled home gardens. Only 12 ofthe 120 edible crops identified were grown in half or more of the gardens,which implies that most of the crops (108) were present in less than one halfof them. The most common taxa grown across home gardens include Alliumcepa (present in 90% of the gardens), Lycopersicumesculentum (88%),Solanum tuberosum (84%), Cucurbitapepo(81%), Phaseolus vulgarisvar. vul-garis(77%), and Capsicum annuum (75%) (Table 4, column [a]). As much as70 crops (or 58% of the total number of edible taxa identified) were grownin less than 10 (or 4%) of the sampled gardens.

On average, most crops occupied a small average of the surface areagrown by any gardener, probably because most crops were not presentin most of the gardens (Table 4, column [b]). The crop that representedthe largest area per gardener was Solanum tuberosum (133 m2/gardener),which on average occupied at least two-fold the area of other crops. Forexample, the next crop with a large area, a tree with a wide canopy, Juglansregia, occupied 70 m2/gardener.

A few crops provided a high average gross financial value per gar-dener, whereas most crops had a low gross financial value (Table 4, column[c]). The crop with the largest gross financial value was Lycopersicon escu-lentum (183 C/year/gardener). Other species with a high average grossfinancial value included Malusdomestica (163 C/year/gardener), Solanumtuberosum (152 C/year/gardener), Phaseolus vulgaris var. vulgaris (127 C/

year/gardener) and Phaseolus vulgaris var. nanus (122 C/year/gardener).We also found that 75% of the crops present in home gardens generated anaverage gross financial value of less than 10 C/year/gardener. Those cropsinclude otherwise common species such as Daucus carota subsp. sativus,Apium graveolens var. dulce, or Fragariax ananassa.

Last, we calculated the gross financial value of home gardens (Table 5).On average, crops in home gardens in our sample had a gross financial

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TAB

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TAB

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TABLE 5 Gross financial value of home gardens, in euros

Catalan Pyrenees Central AsturiasSierra Norte de

Madrid TotalAvg (±SD) Avg (±SD) Avg (±SD) Avg (±SD)

C/garden 918 ( ± 890) 1, 367 ( ± 1, 803) 1, 979 ( ± 1639) 1, 362 ( ± 1, 463)C/gardener 1, 015 ( ± 951) 1, 768 ( ± 2, 051) 2, 866 ( ± 1, 882) 1, 691 ( ± 1, 712)Fruits 247 ( ± 491) 241 ( ± 499) 955 ( ± 1, 127) 447 ( ± 1, 712)Vegetables 769 ( ± 640) 1, 527 ( ± 1, 960) 1, 911 ( ± 1, 462) 1, 244 ( ± 1, 356)

value of 1,362 C/garden/year or 1,691 C/gardener/year. We found largevariations between the gross financial values obtained by gardeners (SD =1,712). For example, whereas the financial value of three gardeners was lessthan 100 C/year, the maximum financial value in our sample was 10,531 C/

year. Gardens in the Sierra Norte de Madrid provide the highest financialvalue both per garden (1,979 C/garden/year) and per gardener (2,866 C/

gardener/year). On average vegetables contribute 74% of the gross financialbenefit of gardens and fruits contribute 26% of it. The percentage is largerin Central Asturias, where vegetables contribute 86% of the gross financialbenefit of gardens and lower in Sierra Norte de Madrid, where vegetablescontribute only 67% of the gross financial benefit of home gardens.

DISCUSSION

We organize the discussion around the three goals of this work.

Characteristics of Home Gardens in Rural Areas of theIberian Peninsula

The characterization of home gardens in rural areas of the Iberian Peninsulaallows comparing them with tropical and other temperate gardens. Severalparticularities emerge from this comparison. First, differently from previ-ously studied home gardens, gardens in our sample seem to be specificallydevoted to food production. In a review of research of home gardens intropical areas, Kumar and Nair (2004) highlight the role of home gardensnot only as a source of nutritional security, but also for the generation ofcash income, the production of a variety of timber, fuel wood, and non-timber forest products, and for the maintenance of farm animals. Differently,home gardens in rural areas of the Iberian Peninsula seem to be grownalmost exclusively for fruits and vegetables to be consumed in the house-hold. In the studied agroecosystems, other plant uses, with the possibleexception of ornamental plants, are marginal. Furthermore, some of the uses

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typically reported for plants present in tropical home gardens, such as tim-ber for construction or tool crafting, were not even mentioned by a singleinformant in our sample.

The specialized role of the studied home gardens in food productionfinds parallels and differences with previous research on Europe. On the oneside, our finding meshes with findings in Italian home gardens (Negri 2003)and in the gardens of Turkish migrants in Germany (Gladis and Pistrick2011). For example, according to research in Italian home gardens (Negri2003) and our own findings, in both areas over 60% of the respondentsconsume most the products of their home gardens. On the other side, ourfinding differs from previous research on Austrian home gardens suggestingmultiple roles of home gardens, including a large presence of species foranimal feed (Vogl-Lukasser and Vogl 2002), which were rare in our sample.

Our ethnographic understanding and literature on the studied areas(Agelet et al. 2000) suggest that the cultivation of nonedible taxa was com-mon until some decades ago, and that some of the species that werereported only as edible during this work, also had other uses (i.e., medici-nal) in the past. However, the low frequency of nonedible species and thescant report of alternative uses suggest that the studied home gardens arenowadays more specialized in edible (and some ornamental) plants thantheir counterparts in the tropics and even than some other home gardensystems in temperate areas.

A commonality between the studied home gardens and home gardensin tropical areas (Kumar and Nair 2004) is their high dependence on laborand a low dependence on agricultural inputs. Nevertheless, the studiedhome gardens seem to have recently suffered some changes associated tothe mechanization of the agricultural sector, not necessarily present in trop-ical gardens. For example, home garden managers in our sample presenta relatively high reliance on chemical pest control methods (57.1%), or onmechanical watering systems (13.4%).

Another of the particularities of home gardens in rural areas of theIberian Peninsula with other European home gardens relates to the predom-inance of the activity between genders. With the exception of the CatalanPyrenees, home gardening in mountain areas of the Iberian Peninsula seemsto be a slightly predominantly male activity, whereas other studies in Europeshow that women are often involved in home gardening (Vogl-Lukasser and-Vogl 2004) and that women are often responsible for the introduction of andexperimentation with new species in home gardens.

Motivations for Gardening

We found that the main motivations for gardening relate to people’s wayof life. For example, when asked directly, 74% of the respondents in our

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sample said that keeping a home garden was their pastime and another 16%reported that they did it because it was a tradition in the area. In compar-ison, less than one third of the people in the sample mentioned that theykeep a garden for economic reasons. The finding dovetails with researchon home gardens ecosystem services (Calvet-Mir et al. 2011). This research,conducted in one of our areas of study, suggests that home gardens providea wide range of ecosystem services beyond the production of food. Althoughthe most valued ecosystem service provided by home gardens is the provi-sion of quality food, other services, like the habitat service “maintenance oflandraces” and the cultural services “hobby,” “heritage value of home gar-dens and associated traditional ecological knowledge,” and “enjoyment ofhome gardens’ aesthetic features,” are highly valued by informants.

Therefore, our findings suggest that, like ornamental gardens in indus-trialized nations (Nassauer 1988; Kaplan 2001; von Hassell 2005; Clayton2007), home gardens in temperate areas might provide benefits associatedto several aspects of people’s wellbeing (i.e., psychological, social, health)that act as incentives in the maintenance of those agroecosystems. For exam-ple, as mentioned, all the areas in our sample have an important agrarianpast. Although most people in the sample are retired or do not work onthe primary sector, home gardens might be a marker of cultural identity,since local traditions and identity are still linked to agrarian activities (SanMiguel 2004). So, as ornamental gardens (Clayton 2007), vegetable homegardens might contribute to increasing the individualsense of belonging toa community, thus contributing to psychological wellbeing.

Similarly, the health benefits attributed by respondents to vegetablehome gardens also seem to play a key role in their maintenance. Thus, 43%of the respondents said that producing their own quality food was one oftheir main motivations for managing a garden. Informants feel that keepinga garden gave them control over their nutrition because they had controlon the amount of chemicals in fruits and vegetables, they could harvestthe products on demand, and because their home-grown products were ofbetter quality and flavor than market products. Ten per cent of the respon-dents reported that keeping the garden helped them to stay active and dosome sort of physical exercise. The importance of ornamental home gar-dens as a place where people can be physically active and the importanceof vegetable home gardens in affording healthy food have been reportedin previous studies and feel peaceful, and in different regions of the world(Vogl and Vogl-Lukasser 2003; Clayton 2007; Morton et al. 2008).

Gross Financial Benefits of Home Gardens

The last goal of this article was to estimate the gross financial benefits ofcrops grown in home gardens. We found that, although some crops producehigher gross financial benefits than others, garden managers do not seem

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to organize their home gardens to maximize those benefits. For example,despite their small size, most home gardens have relatively important areasdevoted to less financially valuable crops.

We also found that, on average, the gross financial value of homegardens per manager is of 1,691 C/year. The amount represents almostthree months of the official minimum salary in Spain, which the governmentfixed at 641C/month for the year 2011 (Spanish Government, Royal Decree1795/2010). This finding, however, needs to be taken with caution, as themethods used to collect and analyze information on crop productivity andprices might create measurement errors that affect our results in unknownmagnitude and direction. For example, since we calculate home gardenproductivity using yield data from crops under intensive management, theestimated productivity might be biased upward, which might result in anoverestimation of the gross financial value of vegetables in home gardens.We might also have an upward bias because we only measured the surfaceinitially sown with a given crop, but we did not measure whether the cropwas later affected by a pest or whether for some other reason its cultivationfailed or was abandoned.

Contrary, the omission of noncommercial crops and nonedible plantsgrown in home gardens (seasoning, ornamental, medicinal, and other usefulplants as well as noncommercial and wild edibles) and the omission ofconsiderations on the quality of the product (mainly organically grown and,therefore, with a higher market value) might result in an underestimation ofthe gross financial value of home gardens.

Future research can improve the work presented here a) by directlycalculating crop productivity in home gardens, and b) by including both thecosts and the benefits generated by home gardens in financial calculations.Such research would help explain the pervasive maintenance of vegetablehome gardens across space and time.

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home gardens in three mountain regions of the iberian...

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