Home Gardens – A Current Economic Approach

The past few years have shown a growing interest of the international scientific community to strengthen and intensify local food production, in an attempt to mitigate the negative effect of population growth, generalized climate change or food price volatility. Under these circumstances, researchers noted a resource that was neglected by macroeconomics over time, and that was the home gardens. No matter whether current research sees this new resource as an element of food security or an improving factor of the status of nutrition in rural communities, in Romania home gardens constitute a real rural capital that has passed the test of time and is already an integral part of the local food systems. This paper provides a theoretical approach on the notion of home gardens, insisting on the social, economic and environmental characteristics and contributions that this economic category brings to the host communities and the society as a whole.