One home one garden
Excellent idea, wrong agricultural system. The one home one garden was an initiative that was introduced around 2009, as a way of alleviating poverty and food insecurity. In my view, this is one of the best initiatives taken by the government however, they used the wrong agricultural system in implementing it. Using commercial inorganic agriculture was used as a system of production in homestead was a mistake. It presented many problems and lacked sustainability. I will only highlight just two of which are:
- It's expensive to maintain. People were given inorganic and sometimes GMO seeds to use. Plants sprouted from GMO seeds and seedlings are known to produce inviable seeds. This meant that the people had to buy seeds every single production season. Furthermore, they were also never taught how to make their own pesticides and herbicides so they needed to buy them as well. The homestead owners should have been given organic seed then taught how to produce their own seed. - The agricultural practices used were environmentally unfriendly. Agricultural systems such as monoculture and the use of chemicals destroyed species diversity. The government should have looked at Permaculture. The Agri Handbook defines Permaculture as a "system based on natural ecosystem processes: through consciously combining plant, animal, built environment and energy systems, it endeavours to create sustainable human habitats, settlements and agriculturally productive systems. The intention is to design productive systems that ultimately generate more energy than they consume, with no negative impact on the natural or social environment."
