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Sustainability of home gardens in Masemulla forest area in Matara district
By Dewwanthi Karunarathna | February 13, 2008
Home-gardens are meant to be sustainable land use systems that provide a variety of products and services to the people. This study was undertaken to evaluate the sustainability of home-gardens in Masemulla forest area in Matara district. Ullala, which is a small village closed to Masemulla forest area, was selected for the study. A survey was conducted using a random sample of 40 home-gardens in the area. Average land area ranged from 0.25 to 0.5 acres with an average family size of 2-8 and almost all the families belonged to the low income group.
Majority of home gardens (90%) consisted of three canopy layers-near the ground surface herbaceous layer, followed by an intermediate layer of shrubs and a tree layer at the upper level. Tree density ranged from low to medium with a combination of mixed species arranged in a random way. Canopy coverage was about 15 to 50% and there were more than 50% of unutilized land areas. Species diversity in the selected home-gardens was low ranging from 20–25 species and the no of woody taxa was about 5-10. Dominant tree species included jak (Artocarpus heterophyllus), coconut (Cocos nucifera), mango (Mangifera indica), areca nut (Areca catechu), mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) etc. Majority of house holders (90%) considered cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum) as an additional income source. All the householders consumed the products of the home-gardens as food.
Less than 10% of house-holders rare animals and although there is a good potential for bee keeping, less than 1% of householders practiced this. Wild-boar and wild-rat attack was one of the main problems in crop production. Soil erosion was also a problem in this area and less than 30% of householders practiced some form of soil conservation methods. Half of the householders fulfilled their energy requirement from their home-gardens. Although there are many advantages in homegardening, householders don’t pay adequate attention as they don’t fully understand the various benefits of proper home-gardening.
M K T K Amarasinghe, I R Palihakkara and M de S Liyanage
Department of Crop Science, University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka.
Topics: symposium 2006 |