Home gardening contributes to household food security by providing direct access to food that can be harvested, prepared and fed to the family, often on a daily basis. Gardening may be done with virtually no economic resources using locally available planting materials, green manure, "live" fencing and indigenous methods of pest controls.

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The most essential foundation of the "Annadana" network is the development of home gardening, which is the ultimate fortress against malnutrition and the erosion of biodiversity. Open-pollinated seeds of traditional varieties are naturally calling for agricultural practices totally sustainable and respectful of the environment.

• To help the farmers regain access to genetic resources and to regain control of their own seeds

• To increase biodiversity in home gardens, to eradicate malnutrition, specifically the prevailing micro-nutriment deficiencies: vitamin A, calcium, iron, selenium, & zinc. (For example, in orange tomatoes there is 12 times more B carotene than in red tomatoes!)

Hybrid seed

• Hybrid seed are designed to fit modern agriculture parameters, like uniform ripening times, uniform size and thick skin, all which for transportation and mass market facilities.

• Hybrid seed are also design to respond to high chemical fertilizer input and are showing poor result if the inputs are not provided.

• The hybrid vegetables cannot reproduce themselves true to type, so for creating a captive market, the farmers must buy seeds every year, as they are either degenerative or sterile in second generation.

• Hybrid seed have also brought the eradication of our heritage ancients’ varieties.

• Furthermore, there is no concern of nutritional value in the engineering of hybrid vegetables seeds.

• This international business is worth 1 billion dollars a year.

• 10 multinational companies control 40% of the seed market, and those same

• 10 multinationals control 60 % of the agro- chemical business worldwide.

Open pollinated seed

• Heritage traditional open-pollinated organic seed of Annadana, have beenfeeding our forefathers for generations.

• They reproduce true to type, ensuring the farmer of seeds for the next season, and so on, as it has been for thousands of years.

• These traditional varieties are very tasty and nutritious. Actually, most people, who encounter them for the first time, are very much impressed by the rich diversity of taste in these varieties.

Home gardening, kitchen gardens 

• Home gardening contributes to household food security by providing direct access to food that can be harvested, prepared and fed to the family, often on a daily basis.

• Even very poor, landless or near landless people practice gardening on small patches or homestead land, vacant lots, roadsides or edges of a field, or in containers.

• Gardening may be done with virtually no economic resources using locally available planting materials, green manure, "live" fencing and indigenous methods of pest controls.

• Home gardening at some level is a production system that the poor can easily enter.

• Gardening provides a diversity of fresh food that improves the quantity and quality of nutrients available to the family.

• Households with gardens typically obtain from them more than 50% of their supply of vegetables and fruits (including such secondary staples as plantains, cassava, taro and sweet potato), medicinal plants and herbs.