Species assortment and biodiversity conservation in homegardens of Bahir Dar City, Ethiopia

Urban Farm DB summary

A 2017 study of homegardens in Bahir Dar City, Ethiopia, based on interviews with 178 households across 7 sub-cities and 12 former kebeles, plus an inventory of fruit species and other higher plant and livestock species. It identified 58 higher plant species of various uses in the gardens: 17 fruit species (28.8%), 12 miscellaneous-use species (20%), 11 vegetable species (18.6%), 11 medicinal species (18.6%), and 8 spice/condiment species (13.6%); the most abundant perennial species were mango (20.8%), guava (13.4%), avocado (11.6%), papaya (11.2%), and Persian lilac (9.9%). It reports that the city gardens offer a distinctive opportunity for preserving medicinal and aromatic plants, while gardens in the outer city showed competition and substitution between horticultural crops and khat (chat).