Assessment on home gardening program as a response to COVID-19 in SLM project’s pilot townships

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is working closely with Department of Planning of Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation (MoALI) in order to implement the Section 2.1.7 of the COVID-19 Economic Relief Plan (CERP) by supporting farmers, small agricultural processors, seed farmers and agriculture businesses.

In order to support the CERP implementation plan, the project, in collaboration with respective Department of Agriculture (DoA) office in pilot Townships, distributed five types of vegetable seeds in Delta (i.e. watercress, eggplant, long bean, okra, roselle) and five type of vegetables in CDZ (i.e. eggplant, long bean, okra, roselle, cucumber), watering can and pamphlets on home gardening to rural farmers in five pilot townships starting from June 2020. The goals of the home gardening programme were to improve food access, nutrition and food security of rural farmers during the COVID-19 pandemic.