Benefits and Challenges of Home Garden in Rigachikun District of Igabi Local Government Area of Kaduna State, Nigeria

The study was conducted to investigate the benefits and challenges of home garden practice in Rigachikun District Igabi Local Government Area of Kaduna State. Data were collected randomly through the use of well structured questionnaire from 40 home gardeners. Descriptive statistics such as mean, percentage, frequency distribution and table were used to analyze the data. The findings revealed that majority (57.50%) of the home gardeners were male, while majority (95.00%) of the gardeners are in their working age group of between 21 – 60 years with about 85.00 % of the respondents having over 5 years experience in home gardening. The result further indicated that thirty two crops of different habits and usage were identified to be cultivated in the home gardens. The result indicates that these nine crops; cowpea (87.50%), groundnut (82.50%), maize (75.00%), tomato (70.00 %), millet (65.00%), sorghum (60.00%), onion (57.00%) while pepper (50.00%) and sweet potato (50.00%) were cultivated by the majority of the gardeners. Some of the crops identified in the home gardens are for medicinal purposes. The result showed that some of the benefits of home garden practice include; better nutrition (95%), generate more income (95%), 90.00% of them have home gardens to obtain fresh food items like vegetables, for recreation (77.50 %), for reduction in family food budget (70.00 %) , for preservation of indigenous knowledge and culture (50.00%), environmental benefits/beautification (50.00%), for easing of emotional stress (37.50%), for medicinal purpose (37.50%), relief of mental fatigue, (32.50 %), promoting social justice and equity(27.50%), for important education or learning opportunities ( 20.00%), for empowering women (12.50%) improved mood; satisfaction and pride and increased self-esteem (10%) and courage to do things differently in life (10%) as benefits they derived from home gardens However the practice of home garden in the study area is hampered by constraints such as inadequacy of farm inputs, poor soil fertility and attack of insect pests and diseases. The study therefore, recommends that gardeners should be encouraged to organize cooperative societies so as to pull their resources together to enable them to get enough capital to purchase necessary farm inputs required for home garden and to be able to control pests and disease attacking their crops.