Title: We are forgetting our home gardens

Author: Chandima Gunasena

Original article was written by me in “Sinhala” medium and published in November 18, 1998 in a Sri
Lankan popular science magazine named “Vidusara” . Now it is nearly two decades have been passed
and still I am addressing the same issue in various manners even at international level.

With the population increment along the time scale, humans have experienced a gradual evolution of
social, economical and environmental conditions. As a result of that humans have been using
environmental resources unlimitedly to satisfy their needs.

Today we experience the consequences of the impact that we created over the ecosystems when
finding our foods has become a serious threat to the almost all living beings in this beautiful planet.

Land resources are limiting day by day when we try to fulfil our residential and other needs.
Furthermore, we are narrowing down the natural biodiversity and genetic variability when attempting
to have more delicious food and drinks.

In the near future we could expect the increment of using land resources for housing and other
constructions and land for agricultural activities will also experience limitations. These limitations may
become serious due to climate change, water scarcity, soil degradation and detrimental impacts of
Agro-chemicals etc.

On the other hand, today we forget our home gardens due to the mind catching advertisements
displaying in various social media networks about our foods and drinks. As a result of this advancing
economic and social commercial process we lost the bushy type micro ecosystem we had in our home
gardens rich with nutritious small berries and other edible fruits, vegetables, medicinal plant sources
and various fauna species including small birds, butterflies, bees and other insects lived there. Due to
this great loss of micro ecosystems natural food web was affected and biological control was disturbed
and various types of pest resurgence were experienced.

In fact, in Sri Lanka nearly 70 to 80 percent of the population spending considerable amount of their
percapita income to purchase food items and they used to buy imported food items, and fast food
items mostly prepared using wheat floor.

Even though, we have hundreds of edible fruits, vegetables and medicinal plants in our ecosystems
those could be processed and used as foods and drinks, we have chosen very few verities for the
purpose. In order to fulfil the increasing demand for foods day by day, we ten to manage larger mono
cropped fields cultivating chosen but limited number of plant varieties. In order to have lands to
establish such large mono cropped fields, we cleared natural forest cover in water source areas
confronting many environmental problems namely, water scarcity, excess use of Agro-chemicals and
soil degradation.

Having a well-coordinated national program for home gardening will increase the use of traditional
and rare fruits, vegetables and medicinal plants at home garden level. This will also increase the
natural bio diversity at micro ecosystem level and improve the lost biodiversity. Further to that this
approach will reestablish the disturbed food web and biological control systems facilitating pollination
and other ecosystem services.

When we tend to consume large number of plant varieties as food items, we have to grow large
number of plant varieties in our home gardens and even in large agricultural fields. This changing food
habit will help to increase the biodiversity and genetic variability in the surrounding micro
environment we live. We need to increase the number of varieties taken as foods and have small
portion from each variety than having large portion of food from form single variety. This will help us
to fulfil our vitamins and mineral requirements from the micro ecosystems we have in our home
gardens.

School level and even at University level we could conduct research and development activities to
develop cost effective nutritious foods, drinks and preparation methods using large number of edible
plant varieties. We have to find new technologies and equipment to process those untouched
biodiversity to produce nutritious foods and drinks for the growing needs in this eventful world. We
need more contributions from the academic community in Sri Lanka in this regard to prepare national
level program to reestablish lost ecosystems and utilize these natural resources more meaningfully.

Today we are shouting and raise our voice in many platforms at the door step of the 21st century and
say that “Environment is not only for us but for future generations”. To safeguard the environment
we have to re think about various practical approaches could be practiced at our home gardens that
we forget with the flush of various social, economic and commercial illusions.

By Chandima Gunasena

Ministry of Agriculture and Lands

“Sampathpaya”

Battaramulla

1998.11.18