Rural Households Perceived Benefits of Home Gardening Practices for Environmental Conservation in Jabi Tehnan District, Ethiopia

Despite the established link between home gardening and its positive effects on both the environment and food security, limited evidence exists on how rural households perceive its benefits for environmental conservation in Jabi Tehnan district, Ethiopia. Although earlier studies have paid considerable attention to biodiversity and agroforestry effects, the perception of households toward environmental conservation benefits has received less attention. A convergent mixed method research design was employed to integrate both qualitative and quantitative data in a single cross sectional study. Quantitative data were collected from 333 randomly selected household heads, while qualitative data were collected from purposefully selected household heads focus group discussion (FGD) and key informant (KI) participants. The quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics of the relative importance index (RII) to rank respondents perceptions, whereas the qualitative data were analyzed thematically through the development of major themes and subthemes. The findings showed that home gardening could create a link between agricultural food production and environmental knowledge benefits for the community. The mean RII of these perceived benefits was high (RII = 0.892), suggesting that home gardening provides multilayered contributions to sustain the environment and improving the standard of living. However, home gardening practices are constrained by various environmental and institutional challenges. Integrating local perceptions with a scientific understanding of agricultural practices, along with insights from environmental science, can enhance environmentally sound agricultural production. This, in turn, contributes to environmental sustainability and intergenerational equity.