Urban home gardening, limited to private residential spaces, has a potential to address the urban food supply chain, when expanded. In Kerala, urban home gardening, supported by governmental intervention and people’s social media-based initiative has become a wider societal movement.

Light weight designed grow bags are used for rooftop garden

Kerala, a state with rural-urban continuum, is overcoming its geographical and spatial limitations in agricultural expansion through extending vegetable production from farms to home gardens in rural and urban areas. Since 2012, the state government of Kerala has made a huge hike in budget allocation for vegetable production in the state through ‘Vegetable Development Program’ (VDP). Urban home gardening received a vital place through allocation of nearly 10 percent of the total annual allocation for VDP. One of the key strategies was to extend vegetable production into otherwise unused spaces – households, schools, and other government and private institutions.

The support included subsidized (75% subsidy) distribution of grow bags planted with different vegetable seedlings, enabling beneficiaries to set up an urban home garden at a cost as low as Rs.500 on the roof tops and balconies. The light weight design of grow bags and use of coir pith in the potting mixture have contributed to reducing the weight of containers, thereby reducing fear of damage to the home roof structure.  The government subsidy (ranging from 50%-75%) also supports various ecofriendly inputs like biocontrol agents and organic pesticides, water-saving technologies such as wick and drip irrigation, and domestic waste management units (pipe composts, portable biogas plants etc.) enabling recycling of the household wastes. The subsidized inputs were complemented by support of suitable institutional mechanisms – government research organizations for development of space-saving and resource-efficient cultivation methods; extension services by Krishi Bhavans; training programmes and establishment of urban agro-service centres for easy and affordable access of gardening inputs and technologies. Home garden vegetable production was also given a cultural dimension by linking it with the traditional festivals of Onam and Vishu.