Assessing the role and effectiveness of kitchen gardening toward food security in Punjab, Pakistan: a case of district Bahawalpur

Abstract

Food security is one of the leading issues of many governments globally. Kitchen gardening is the innovative project initiated by the Government of Punjab (Pakistan) to provide instant aid to dwellers by self-produced fresh vegetables. The present investigation was conducted in the district Bahawalpur. The objectives were to explore the main benefits of kitchen gardening, to identify the places used for this activity, to identify the growers’ perceptions and to give suggestions to improve the project. Two urban and one rural tehsils of district Bahawalpur were selected as study areas. Secondary data were collected from several sources while primary data gathered through a mobile phone survey and analyzed by applying descriptive and inferential statistics using SPSS software. The findings have justified that dominant share of growers have sown the seed kits for vegetables production, mostly for home consumption and was satisfied with the quality and price of seed kit. Most of the growers certified the efficiency of the project in the regular provision of fresh and healthy vegetables. Hence, the project is a successful endeavor and still continuing in the province, benefiting the masses and encouraging urban agriculture. The outcome of the investigation is suggestions to further improve this project.

Keywords:

• Food security
• kitchen gardening
• urban agriculture
• district Bahawalpur
• Punjab province

Introduction

Increasing urbanization and food security are among the key issues of the present era (FAO 2011). In recent decades, the safe and regular access of food to many rural and poor urban households has become uncertain, creating concerns of food security in many developing countries. Millions of the people around the globe are unable to purchase or have the access to sufficient food for themselves and their families (Nkosi et al. 2014). Therefore, safe food production and secure food supply are critical issues for low-income countries and it is important to develop all possible methods for the production and distribution of food (Arshad Shafqat 2012; Cameron & Wright 2014). In Germany, innovative forms of urban agriculture, such as Zero-Acreage Farming (ZFarming) are being practiced. ZFarming involving rooftop gardens, indoor farms and other building-related forms have contributed significantly to food supply in addition to providing numerous environmental, economic and social benefits (Specht et al. 2014).

Major food items such as vegetables and fruits are considered vital for the rapidly increasing populations of developing countries like Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. Therefore, kitchen gardens (or home-based gardens) can play a pivotal role to alleviating problems of hunger and malnutrition in these countries. Kitchen gardens have already proven to be an important subsidiary source of food in India and Sri Lanka (Halder & Pati 2011; Galhena et al. 2013).

Literally, ‘Kitchen gardens’ refer to food grown in or around the house for household use (Evans & Jespersen 2001). Home gardens may be kitchen garden, a mixed garden, or backyard, farmyard and compound garden or homestead garden. Kitchen or home gardening is an earliest and most extensive food production system found throughout the world (Landauer & Brazil 1985; Rowe 2009).

In many parts of the world, the practice of a community gardening is widespread as both collective gardens and individually allocated spaces (Holland 2004). The practice of collective community gardens is useful and frequently adopted in many developed countries (e.g. Australia) as a useful activity but less applicable in countries like Pakistan where land ownership patterns and utilization highly differ from these countries in terms of individual preferences and existing land uses. In Pakistan, people grow vegetables individually or on household basis in spaces within their possession rather in a collective effort on allotted space. Hence, encouraging or enhancing vegetable gardening at home can play a significant role in improving food security to resource poor rural and urban households in developing countries like Pakistan and providing additional sources of fresh and nutritionally rich food products (Asaduzzaman et al. 2011; Galhena 2012).

The various social benefits that have emerged from kitchen gardening practices are health and nutrition, enhanced income, self-employment, food security within the household and community social life (Rehman et al. 2013). Fruits and vegetable production gives households direct access to important nutrition that might not be within their budget to purchase (Talukder et al. 2001; Heim et al. 2009). Kitchen gardening has also proved cost-effective and sustainable method for producing organic vegetables such as cauliflower, radish and turnip (Titilola et al. 2012; Rani et al. 2013). In Mexico, the house garden is considered a specified site for the reproduction of cultural relations and plays a key role in family life (Christie 2004). In Benin, vegetable farming has provided a balanced diet to urban populations and enhanced farmers’ household income and living standard (Allagbé et al. 2014). In low-income housing areas of urban Penang (Malaysia), kitchen gardens have proved a symbol of place, identity and sense of belonging for local low-cost flat residents (Ghazali 2013).

With its burgeoning population, food security has now become the major objective of the Government of Pakistan and policymakers have focused on formulating a sound food policy leading to food security (Tariq et al. 2014). Nevertheless, in recent years Pakistan has witnessed increased poverty levels and higher risk of food insecurity in many areas. For instance, about 12% of the Potohar district population lacks food security and another 38% are at high risk of it (Abbasi et al. 2014). Because it is a fact that kitchen kitchen gardens have great potential for improving household food security and alleviating micronutrient deficiencies (FAO 2010), the main objectives of this study is to explore the benefits of the kitchen gardening project, to identify place, area and yield output of kitchen gardens, and to investigate the grower’s perceptions and suggestions for further improvement to the project. Hence, this study sought to summarize specific benefits of kitchen gardening reported in the existing literature on urban agriculture in the context of Punjab province in general and district Bahawalpur in particular.

Kitchen gardening project in Punjab: background and progress

The kitchen gardening project was initiated by the Government of Punjab in the year of 2010–2011 with the goal of promoting and protecting peoples’ health and reducing their food expenditures (Table 1). Initially, the estimated period of the project was for 3 years with the allocation of 38.74 million rupees (PKR) (about 410,000 US $) for the project. The funds invested largely on operational works such as the procurement and selling of seed kits and publication and distribution of introductory pamphlets. During the target period (2011–2014), about 400,000 seed kits were distributed among the people successfully (Govt. of Punjab 2011b). Additional investments were also made to train people by creating production technology compacts disk (CDs) and pamphlets (Tables 2 and 3). The prepared seed kits contained eight different seeds of popular vegetables such as ladyfinger, bitter gourd, bottle gourd, cucumber, long melon for planting in summer season and radish, carrot, turnip, fenugreek, coriander, cauliflower for winter season vegetables. The single seed kit has a weight of 150 g with the set price of 50 rupees (PKR) (about 48 US $ cent) per seed kit to make it affordable for people (Govt. of Punjab 2010).

Table 1. Brief description of kitchen gardening project in Punjab, Pakistan.

Name of the project	Upscaling of kitchen gardening in Punjab
Location	All district of Punjab
Sponsoring agency	Government of Punjab
Project period	36 months (2011–2012 to 2013–2014) but still continue
Project objectives	✓ To create awareness among masses about production of vegetables for their own consumption.
	✓ To disseminate vegetable production technology for kitchen gardening.
	✓ To advertisement the kitchen gardening benefits to increase the interest of growers.
	✓ Creating demand of seed kits through NGOs and public sector organizations.
	✓ To provide seed kits to the kitchen gardeners having the seeds of seasonal vegetables to encourage the kitchen gardening.

Source: Govt. of Punjab (2011b).

Table 2. Cost of kitchen gardening project (figures in Rs. million).

Item	2011–2012	2012–2013	2013–2014	Total
Establishment charges	0.3	0.5	0.3	1.3
Operational/contingencies	9.57	13.97	13.97	37.51
Machinery and equipment	0.13	0	0	0.13
Total	10	14.47	14.47	38.94

Source: Govt. of Punjab (2011b).

Table 3. Year-wise activities of kitchen gardening project in Punjab (figures in nos.).

Activity	2011–2012	2012–2013	2013–2014	Total
Procurement and selling of seed kits (5 Marla)	100,000	150,000	100,000	400,000
Selling of seed kits (5 Marla)	100,000	150,000	100,000	400,000
Training of facilitators	72	72	72	216
Provision of free seed kits for demonstration plants	216	216	216	648
Production and distribution of pamphlets	150,000	200,000	200,000	550,000
Trainings in schools, govt. offices, vocational training centers and residential areas	900	900	900	2,700
Persons to be trained	27,000	27,000	27,000	81,000
Preparation of CDs of production technology	5,000	5,000	5,000	15,000
Selling of CDs of production technology	5,000	5,000	5,000	15,000

Source: Govt. of Punjab (2011b).

It is also been planned to utilize the open spaces in educational and institutional lands with the assistance of the respective institutes. The project is a joint venture of public and private sector and operational in a systematic coherent order from top (provincial government) to bottom (a single grower). In this connection, the provincial agriculture (extension) department was assigned main duties as first to promote kitchen gardening and publicize the trend with arranging seminars, demonstrations, workshops, trainings, walks, public campaign, etc. along with identifying suitable areas to disseminate the knowledge, awareness and ways of successful kitchen gardening. The awareness workshops and seminars were held at schools, colleges and public places by the concerned officials and this activity turned out to be very fruitful after the exciting participation of public to know and learn the ways of effective vegetable growing from household to community level. Apart from that, the participants were given brief training and supplementary material to get more understanding of the kitchen gardening. For instance, they were instructed by agricultural experts to learn effective ways of plowing and preparing land, watering, fertilizing, etc. and provided literature pamphlets, CDs and helpline contacts. Other than that, the department was also asked to arrange road shows and an effective media campaign of the project (Daily Dawn 2011). Initially, in 2011, Government of Punjab had prepared about 80,000 seed packets of various vegetables on automatic machines (Islam 2011). While in 2013, the prepared seed kits selling target was set of 70,000 kits (Table 4) among the 36 districts of Punjab in summer and winter season vegetables.

Table 4. Distributed selling target of kitchen gardening seed kits in 2013 in Punjab.

Sr. no.	Name of district	Target (figures in nos.)
		Kharif season (summer vegetables)	Rabi season (winter vegetables)
1	Attack	600	500
2	Chakwal	1,000	500
3	Rawalpindi	1,200	1,500
4	Jhelum	1,000	500
5	Sargodha	1,000	1,500
6	Khushab	1,000	1,000
7	Mianwali	800	500
8	Bhakkar	1,000	500
9	Lahore	2,500	2,500
10	Kasur	1,000	500
11	Nankana Sahib	800	500
12	Sheikupura	1,000	500
13	Gujranwala	1,200	1,500
14	Hafizabad	1,000	1,000
15	Sialkot	1,500	1,500
16	Narowal	1,100	500
17	Gujrat	1,000	500
18	M.B.Din	1,000	500
19	Faisalabad	3,000	2,500
20	T.T.Singh	1,500	1,000
21	Jhang	1,400	500
22	Chiniot	600	500
23	Multan	1,400	2,000
24	Lodhran	1,000	500
25	Khanewal	1,000	500
26	Vehari	1,000	500
27	Sahiwal	1,000	500
28	Pakpattan	1,000	500
29	Okara	1,000	1,500
30	D.G.Khan	500	500
31	Layyah	1,000	500
32	Muzaffargarh	1,000	500
33	Rajanpur	1,000	500
34	Bahawalpur	1,200	500
35	Bahawalnagar	1,200	500
36	Rahim Yar Khan	500	500
	Total	40,000	30,000
	Grand total	70,000

Source: Govt. of Punjab (2013).

Results

The set targets for the sale of seed kits were achieved throughout the province within the timeframe and had marked the awareness and fame of the project among urban and semi-urban population.

Regardless of the apparent significant and hopeful outcomes, there has been criticism that the seed packets have not reached to the deserved poor growers living in urban areas of the province and thus this whole exercise may not yield desired outcomes (Hasan 2011). Nevertheless, the project has achieved up to mark success and popularity toward creating a safe environment, healthy food and engagement of the public in this useful activity across the province (Table 4). For instance, in 2012, the sale of kitchen gardening seed kits increased from 5,000 to 170,000 in rabi (winter) season and 3,000 to 75,000 in kharif (summer) season (Govt. of Punjab 2012). Later in 2013, Planning & Development Department of the Government of Punjab conducted an extensive survey. The survey evaluation results indicated that the project achieved substantial success in the provision of economical and secure vegetables to the masses with better yield in summer and winter seasons. In order to monitor the project efficiency and acceptance of people, the district Agriculture (Extension) Department of Bahawalpur was also directed by the provincial government to maintain and submit of a kitchen gardening project report regarding received and distributed/sold seed kits and their deposited money on daily basis. Sales centers were established in selected tehsils’ (administrative subdistricts) offices of agriculture (extension) department and other government offices to sell the seed kits to residents (Table 5). In this way, the considerable amount of project operational costs (e.g. preparing of seed kits, publishing and creation of pamphlets and CDs) were recovered. Although, the sale of seeds did not pay for the cost of the project, it did meet the cost-recovery target. After selling the seed kits, the selling data were sent to the district agriculture (extension) department along with the details of total recovered amount (money) that was later deposited in government treasury account.

Table 5. Kitchen gardening seed kits progress in Bahawalpur in 2011, 2012 and 2013.

			Dated 20 October 2011	Dated 01 November 2012	Dated 25 October 2013
Sr. no.	Name of tehsil/center	No. of seed kits sale centers	Seed kits received and distributed	Seed kits received and distributed	Seed kits received and distributed
1	Bahawalpur (City and Saddar)	4	1,250	900	850
2	Ahmedpur East	4	650	500	700
3	Yazman	2	950	500	550
4	Khairpur Tamewali	1	500	200	450
5	Hasilpur	2	355	300	500
6	Divisional Forest Officer/Bahawalpur/Lal Sohanra	1	100	100	25
7	AO Nursery Bahawalpur	1	45	–	(Al-Sadiq Desert Organization)
					300
	Total	15	3,850	2,500	3,200
	Grand total	15	9,550

Source: District Agriculture (Extension) Department of Bahawalpur (2014).

Materials and methods

Study area

Bahawalpur district has a rich economic, historic, demographic and physiographic place in Punjab province. The district was once the part of the Bahawalpur state ruled by local Nawab (royal noblemen) before its annexation with Pakistan in 1955. It is positioned between 27^°40′ and 29^°50′ North latitudes and between 70^°54′ and 72^°50′ East longitudes and occupied an area of 24,830 sq. km (Govt. of Pakistan 1998) (Figure 1). More than two-third area of the district is occupied by mighty Cholistan Desert in the south, southeast and southwest. Administratively, the district is divided into six tehsils or subdivision namely Bahawalpur City, Bahawalpur Saddar, Ahmedpur East, Yazman, Khairpur Tamewali and Hasilpur. Among the 107 Union Councils (UCs or small revenue estates) exist in the district 29 are urban and 78 are rural. Rural Union Councils are mainly located around the big cities or towns and inhabited rural population predominantly is engaged in subsistence farming.

Figure 1. Location map of district Bahawalpur showing study areas.

Source: Authors (2015).

Figure 2. Vegetables seeds sown in kitchen garden.

Source: Field survey (2014).

Figure 3. A demonstration plot of kitchen gardening.

Source: Field survey (2014).

The population of the district is rapidly being increased as per the national census of Pakistan (Govt. of Pakistan 1998), the population of the district consisted of 2,433,000 individuals that was increased and estimated 3,277,000 in 2011 (Table 6). Likewise, Bahawalpur is one of the 36 districts of the Punjab province where the kitchen gardening project is initiated with keeping special focus to its rapidly growing population, high poverty levels and boosting demand of cheaper, fresh food items among urban and suburban residents.

Table 6. Number of Union Councils (UCs) and their population in Bahawalpur district.

No. of Union Councils			Population (thousand persons)						1998 urban pop. (%)
			As per 1998 census			Est. on 31 December 2011
Total	Urban	Rural	Total	Urban	Rural	Total	Urban	Rural
107	29	78	2,433	665	1,768	3,277	896	2,381	27.3

Source: Govt. of Punjab (2011a).

Data collection

Although, variety of methods and approaches found in literature that are often used in social sciences for data collection process, but many researchers have also introduced innovative methods of data gathering based on their personal knowledge and experiences, and also provide creativity in mutual coherence between researchers and respondents like management of the workshop bus trip, etc. (Cameron et al. 2010). Similarly, the current research has also utilized cellular mobile phone (the most widely used communication medium in Pakistan as estimated 128.04 million users in early 2016 (PTA 2016) survey and field investigations as primary data collection methods employing a semi-structured interview with both open and close-ended questions. Wherein, majority of the questions were closed-ended (e.g. purpose of vegetable sowing, cost of seed kit, effectiveness of the project, main expenditures of the project, main benefits of the project, etc.) whereas few questions (e.g. growers opinions about the betterment of the project) were open ended. The opinions of the growers were categorized in order to analyze them statistically. The average length of the conversation with interviewee varied between 10–15 min. During this phase, some difficulties have also been tapped due to unawareness and hesitant communication of the interviewees probably resulted from the new method of data acquisition. However, later on they fully cooperated, happily shared and expressed about their kitchen gardening experiences when they were briefed about the purpose and meaning of the study.

Samples and sampling procedure

Total 100 growers (35 each from Bahawalpur City and Bahawalpur Saddar, respectively, and 30 from Ahmedpur East tehsil (subdistrict) were selected as target samples. The sample size taken one-third of the total numbers given in the lists was determined using simple percentage formula based on the growers numbers mentioned in the lists (tehsil wise) in the following procedure;

Number of Growers in One List/Total Growers in All Lists × 100

(List 1: Bahawalpur City)  101/289 × 100 = 34.95

(List 2: Bahawalpur Saddar) 101/289 × 100 = 34.95

(List 3: Ahmedpur East)  87/289 × 100 = 30.10

The random stratified sampling was used to select respondents from three tehsils of Bahawalpur viz. Bahawalpur City, Bahawalpur Saddar and Ahmedpur East mostly from the residents resided in urban and semi-urban areas, and they were contacted by the authors separately for getting necessary information. In addition to that, field visits were also made to verify the respondents’ responses and ground-truthing (Figure 1 and Figure 2) The whole exercise took the period of more than 1 month. The cellular mobile numbers of these persons were chosen and obtained from the detailed lists of growers contacts who purchased the seed kits arranged by Agriculture (Extension) Department of district Bahawalpur. These lists were prepared tehsil wise and mentioned other minor details as well (e.g. grower’s address, plot size).

Data Analysis: Initially, the collected data were in raw format and were properly arranged, tabulated and then subjected to statistical operations using Statistical Package for Social Sciences 16.0 software. By applying descriptive (frequencies and percentages) and inferential (Chi-square test) statistics, the attempt was made to determine the significance and effectiveness of kitchen gardening project among the masses. Finally, study area map was generated in Arc View 3.2a software.

Results and discussion

Expenditures, efficiency and main benefits of kitchen gardening

Cost-effectiveness (affordability) and its related issues are considered essential in any community development project. Table 7 shows the project benefits regarding cost affordability, quality and expenditures. Out of 100 respondents who have purchased seed kits from sales centers, 84% respondents have sown their seed kits for vegetables growing. About 16% respondents had not planted their seeds due to various reasons such as lack of time, family affairs, less space, unawareness, etc. A previous study conducted in national capital Islamabad through personal interview using questionnaire found that kitchen gardening activity was practiced by 90% surveyed people at their homes who used their production for home consumption and numerous other benefits (Rehman et al. 2013). Similarly, in study areas, 82% growers have grown the vegetables for their own daily household consumption. Shaheb et al. (2014) also reported that production of vegetables and fruits at homes provides the household with direct access to important nutrients. The majority of the growers were urban residents resided in Bahawalpur City and Ahmedpur East City while, about 18% had grown the vegetables for selling in local markets. These were mainly the residents of semi-urban and rural localities and grew vegetables in comparatively large-size land plots. The advantages of kitchen gardening, particularly in the context of low-income households of developing countries, are manifold and support the growers in many ways. Drescher et al. (2000) stated that many social benefits have emerged from kitchen gardening practices including better health and nutrition, increased income, employment opportunities and food security of household and community social life. A recent study conducted in district Muzaffargarh (Punjab, Pakistan) concluded that the women are particularly more aware about kitchen gardening. Hence, the study based on training activity is designed to involve, educate women about different ways of exercising effective kitchen gardening. They were engaged in growing of vegetables in due time with proper management and be able to save time and money in terms of buying vegetables from the market (Cheema 2011; Bajwa et al. 2015). Similarly, in study areas the women have also actively participated in the activity along with their men and children. The results showed that the seed kits used for kitchen gardening usually contained different seeds of vegetables and were well packed keeping the standards and design in view. About 13% growers reported that the quality of seeds was excellent, about 62% asserted that quality of seeds was good and 16.7% responded that quality of seeds was average. The Chi-square value (62.19) also verifies the high quality of seeds with highly significant (p-value .000) association. These results proved that the quality of vegetable seeds was overall good and productive in quality. About 8.3% growers were not satisfied with seed kit quality and they considered it poor. When they were asked about this poor quality of the seeds, majority of them complained that after sowing seeds they have not acquired any output. When an expert of the district agricultural office was inquired about this under achieved output, he argued that the seed kit contained certified seed variety and the output failure might be the result of improper watering, infertile soil or less knowledge of vegetable sowing. The affordability of the cost is also an important component regarding the predicted success of the project and hence it was kept low as 50 PKR (about 48 US $ cent) per kit. Previous study conducted in Bangladesh also highlighted the shortage of irrigation water, quality seeds and inputs cost as major problems faced by growers in kitchen gardening (Rahman et al. 2008). Study results show that about 99% growers were happy with the seed kit price and have no problem to purchase this. Usually, the vegetables produced in kitchen gardening do save money and improved taste than vegetables and fruit bought from grocery store (Christensen 2011). While only a single grower was unhappy with the stipulated price. The Chi-square value (80.04) also certifies strong association with p-value (.000) between the price of seed kit and growers purchasing behavior. The estimated expenditures made by growers in vegetables growing were also varying and range from low to medium in cost. About 32.1% growers expenditures on vegetable growing were between 100–200 PKR, a majority of 41.7% growers spent 200–300 PKR, 23.8% were spent 300–400 PKR on the growing of vegetables while 2.4% have made the highest expenditures ranging from 400–500 PKR. These expenditures were made in account of watering and plowing of plots when asked. These results certify that the growers have not spent much on the growing of vegetables. When they were asked about project effectiveness and main benefits, then about 88% growers argued that the project is a useful initiative in alleviating their daily-based kitchen expenditures and a source of an uninterrupted supply of fresh and safe nutritious vegetables on a reasonable cost. In addition, they had obtained variety of benefits from this project as 25% growers responded that they got improved quality (in terms of seed germination and growth of plant) and economical vegetables, 35.7% considered this project as a source of providing safe and healthy vegetables, 29.7% trusted the taste and nutritious features of the produced vegetables. Being a healthy activity, kitchen gardening decreases people’s fiscal expenditures and bring self-sufficiency in vegetables production. Additionally, they get healthy and nutritious food from their kitchen gardens (Rehman et al. 2013). It is also evident from a study that kitchen gardening has proved a reasonable livelihood approach for resource poor people in terms of nutrient supply, calorie intake and economic benefits (Chayal et al. 2013). A study conducted in Kenya also reported that about 48% of the respondents do not purchase vegetables after establishing kitchen gardens and about 99% of the respondents think that the kitchen gardens have improved their nutritional variety (Njuguna 2013). In contrary, only 9.5% growers were not satisfied with the outcomes and they blamed it a redundant or useless effort. Despite this, the Chi-square value (50.65) also supports growers’ perceptions about project effectiveness with high significance p-value (.000). These results again testify that overwhelming growers (90.5%) were fully benefited and satisfied with vegetables yield output and thus favored the project with its obvious effectiveness and numerous advantages. Thus, it is proved a purposeful and productive venture and should be promoted as it would help people in dropping kitchen expenditures, pollution and creating healthy environments at homes and vicinity (Khan 2013).

Table 7. Expenditures, efficiency and main benefits of kitchen gardening project.

Attributes	Response of respondents (frequency and percentage)
Have you	Yes	No
sown seed kit?	84 (84%)	16 (16%)
Purpose of vegetable growing	Home consumption	Selling purpose
	69 (82.1%)	15 (17.9%)
Quality of seeds	Excellent	Good	Average	Poor
	11 (13.1%)	52 (61.9%)	14 (16.7%)	7 (8.3%)
Chi-square = 62.19	d.f. = 1	Sig. = .000**
Is the cost of seed kit affordable?	Yes	No
	83 (98.8%)	1 (1.2%)
Chi-square = 80.04	d.f. = 1 level	Sig. = .000**
Estimated expenditures on vegetable growing	100–200 PKR	200–300 PKR	300–400 PKR	400–500 PKR
	27 (32.1%)	35 (41.7%)	20 (23.8%)	2 (2.4%)
Efficiency of project	Yes	No
	74 (88.1%)	10 (11.9%)
Chi-square = 50.65	d.f. = 1	Sig. = .000**
Main benefits	Improved quality and economical	Safe and healthy	Nutritious and tasty	Idle
	21 (25%)	30 (35.7%)	25 (29.7%)	8 (9.5%)

**significant at 5% level. Source: Telephonic Survey (2014).

Specified place, area, inputs and yield output of kitchen gardening

For a successful kitchen gardening, it is important that how much area required for vegetable cultivation along with seed, fertilizer and organic pesticides availability? (AARI, 2015). The efforts made by district government to conduct awareness seminars and training sessions about kitchen gardening have brought notable positive changes in people’s behavior about the project and they have gained sufficient knowledge and practical training of vegetable sowing and their proper management. Table 8 portrays the specified sowing place, area and application of fertilizers for the better production of vegetables. A large number of growers (77.4%) utilized house’s lawn for the purpose of growing vegetables, 17.9% used house roofs for the growing of vegetable due to the absence of lawn or availability of less vacant space at home. The rest of the growers used earthen pots (2.4%) and plastic bottles (2.4%) for vegetable production. Although specified area in kitchen gardening is an important element having a significant impact on overall yield output (Asaduzzaman et al. 2011) yet, the majority of the growers resided in urban and semi-urban areas were having less space for vegetable growing. Further, it is also known that the growers education level, income, knowledge of vegetable sowing, training or received training literature also do matter in the site and space selection for kitchen gardening. About 39.3% growers used less than 1 Marla (local unit of land equal to 272 sq. feet) space for vegetable growing, 36.9% used 2–3 Marla (544–816 sq. feet) space for this activity. Both of these classes of growers resided in congested parts of the Bahawalpur and Ahmedpur East cities. While 20.2% and 3.57% growers in adjacent rural localities used 4–5 Marla (1,088–1,360 sq. feet) and more than 5 Marla (>1,360 sq. feet) piece of land, respectively, for kitchen gardening. Amongst majority of growers has exercised this for income generation, as it has been witnessed as a source of additional income in various previous studies (Galhena 2012; Qaiser et al. 2013; Rehman et al. 2013; Bajwa et al. 2015). Moreover, growers also have applied different kinds of inputs for better yield of vegetables; as 73.9% used fertilizers for better output and Chi-square result also considered it highly significant with p-value (.000) for better yield of vegetables, 17.8% have spent much on labor charges and mostly were the urban dwellers in Bahawalpur City. Growers also made minor expenditures in the account of irrigating vegetables (7.1%) and purchasing of seed kit (1.2%). It was recognized that target growers have used different fertilizers for better yield. Chi-square value (65.19) also denoted a considerable association regarding growers’ preferences for the use of fertilizers and expected better yield output with a highly significant p-value (.000). DAP fertilizer was famous and effective for enhancing the yield output, so the majority of the growers (50%) used this for better production, 22.6% were used Potash for increasing yield, 15.5% used natural manure (animal dung) for this purpose mostly the residents of rural areas and 11.9% growers applied Urea fertilizer for maximizing the vegetable output. These results clarify that almost all growers were willing to gain the maximum yield by applying different fertilizers to meet their daily needs of vegetables. Thus, after using fertilizers, 85.7% growers acquired an increased yield of vegetables. Chi-square result (126.67) also verifies it highly significant with p-value (.000), while the rest of the growers faced a decrease in yield (3.6%), change in quality (7.1%) and no output (3.6%). These all discrepancies in yield might be the result of certain factors like lack of care, deficit water for vegetables, no application of fertilizer, less experience in vegetable sowing, etc. However, overall findings demonstrated that growers yielded maximum output of vegetables after proper care, use of fertilizer and irrigating with fresh water.

Table 8. Place, area and use of fertilizer in kitchen gardening.

Attributes	Response of respondents (frequency and percentage)
Place of seed kit Sowing	Lawn	House roof	Earthen pots	Others
	65 (77.4%)	15 (17.9%)	2 (2.4%)	2 (2.4%)
Specified area of vegetable sowing	<1 Marla	2–3 Marla	4–5 Marla	> 5 Marla
	33 (39.3%)	31 (36.9%)	17 (20.2%)	3 (3.57%)
Major input by cost	Fertilizer	Labor charges	Irrigation	Seed kit
	61 (72.6%)	15 (17.9%)	5 (6%)	1 (1.2%)
Chi-square = 116.95	d.f. = 3	Sig. = .000**level
Use of fertilizer for better yield	Yes	No
	79 (94%)	5 (6%)
Chi-square = 65.19	d.f. = 1	Sig. = .000**
Type of fertilizer	Urea	Potash	DAP	Natural manure
	10 (12.3%)	19 (23.5%)	39 (48.1%)	13 (16%)
Major output after fertilizer use	Increase in yield	Decrease in yield	Change in quality	No output
	72 (85.7%)	3 (3.6%)	6 (7.1%)	3 (3.6%)
Chi-square = 126.67	d.f. = 2	Sig. = .000**

Source: Telephonic Survey (2014).

**significant at 5%.

Conclusion

Kitchen gardening is the innovative project, initiated by the Government of Punjab with the basic objective to provide relief for the masses on daily vegetable needs and creating a safe and sustainable environment with healthy people. The findings of this study highly aid to the relative importance and hopes of kitchen gardening project in the district and clearly indicates that the set targets of kitchen gardening project in the Punjab province have almost been accomplished with considerable success. As a result, daily kitchen expenditures are greatly reduced and this activity has evolved urban agriculture too. The provincial government has invested a huge sum on the development and promotion of the project. In this regard, serious and systematic efforts have been made with the collaboration of district governments in the right direction to achieve the ultimate objectives of the project. The year-wise performance also proved the remarkable advancement of the project and all set targets are entrusted within due period. In district Bahawalpur, the same results are obtained after its inception in 2011. The allocated quota of vegetable seed kits were received and sold out timely with deep affiliation of the people noticed with this activity. Survey results also justified the project outcomes. The majority of the kitchen gardeners has grown vegetables for home consumption and was satisfied with the quality of seeds and affordability of seed kit price. Lawns and house roofs were the common places of seed sowing and mostly urban growers utilized less area compared with rural areas where comparatively large area of land has utilized for growing vegetables. Growers are made to vary expenditures on vegetables growing particularly on the application of fertilizers for better yield and achieved it successfully. Leading number of the growers demonstrated the efficiency of the kitchen gardening project and counted it substantial in the provision of vegetables characterized by various benefits; improved quality, economical, nutritious, tasty, etc. The same results have been justified by Chi-square analysis. Hence, it is concluded, that kitchen gardening project has achieved the target success and familiarity to provide cheap vegetables grown at household level with several advantages including healthy activity, protecting environment and lessening daily kitchen expenditures. Hence, it is still in operation in the province and benefiting the masses with numerous advantages and ensuring food security. The study is a purposeful endeavor, successfully accomplished with the combined source like mobile phone survey, in-depth interviews, regular field visits, ground truthing and participation of many stakeholders (growers, project implementers, agricultural experts, focal persons, etc.). However, the collected data by survey were limited to some extent and may not address all the aspects of growers’ kitchen gardening experiences. So, a more comprehensive future study may be required to uncover the additional potentials and benefits of the kitchen gardening.

Suggestions

Keeping in view the obvious outcomes and benefits of the project, and to bring further improvement in it, the following suggestions are proposed:

• The project awareness campaign should be widened to convey its benefits extensively.

• Quality of seed should be further improved.

• The household members particularly women and children should be encouraged for vegetable production.

• Government should provide more incentives (training, free seed kits, pamphlets) particularly to poor dwellers residing in semi-urban and rural localities.

• Private partnership on small scale should be promoted.

• Technical support should be provided to the growers.

• Electronic media (TV, radio and cable) should be utilized for project publicity.

• Demonstration plots of kitchen gardening should be maximized to attract the community.

• To increase the seed kits sale, the fixed price of seed kit should be reduced.

• The sale centers should be maximized for the easier access of the community.

Acknowledgements

The authors are deeply grateful to the Executive District Officer (EDO) Agriculture, District Officer Agriculture (Extension) Bahawalpur and their office clerical staff for the provision of essential secondary data, support and cooperative behavior.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Muhammad Mohsin

Muhammad Mushahid Anwar, PhD Geography, He is working as professor and chair of Department of Geography at University of Gujrat, Punjab, Pakistan. His area of interest is urban landscape ecology, urban planning.

Muhammad Mushahid Anwar

Muhammad Mohsin, M.Phil Geography, He is working as lecturer of Geography at Department of Geography, Govt. S.E. College, Bahawalpur, Punjab, Pakistan. His area of interest is Urban Planning, Urban Morphology and Structure, Urban Problems, Urban Ecology, Rural-urban Fringe Dynamics.

Farrukh Jamal

Farukh Jamal is PhD scholar of statistics at Department of Statistics, The Islamia University Bahawalpur, Punjab, Pakistan. His area of interest is Applied Statistics, Probability, Statistical Inference, Econometrics. He is working as lecturer, Govt. S.A. Postgraduate College, Dera Nawab Sahib, Bahawalpur.

Fahad Ajmal

Fahad Ajmal is a PhD scholar at Department of Botany, University of The Punjab Lahore, Pakistan. His area of interest is Molecular Biology, Plant Physiology, Agronomy and Stress Physiology. He is working as subject specialist of Botany at Lahore, Pakistan

Juergen Breuste

Juergan Breuste is PhD Geography. He is working as professor and chair of Urban Landscape Ecology at Department of Geology and Geography at Salzburg University, Austria.