Home Gardens Enrich Diets in Nigeria’s Rural Communities

This article was co-authored by Nigeria Health Watch and Sahel Consulting as part of our ongoing advocacy efforts to promote community-based nutrition interventions in Nigeria

We all need to eat year-round, so why not keep a home garden going throughout the year?

In Doruwa Babuje, a quiet community nestled in the hills of Bokkos Local Government Area (LGA) Plateau State, this question is transforming how families eat, grow, and survive. Where children once had to wait for market days to enjoy leafy vegetables, they can now stretch out their hands and pluck fresh pumpkin leaves from the garden by their doorstep.

The scent of Dambu — a traditional delicacy — now carries hints of spinach, okra, and bell pepper, ingredients that once felt out of reach. Fresh food is no longer a luxury, it is now steadily becoming the norm.

“Before this, we ate whatever we had,” Aisha Isa, a home gardener, stated. “Now, we know why vegetables are important, and we use them in our everyday meals.”

In 2021, the Advancing Local Dairy Development in Nigeria (ALDDN) programme, funded by the Gates Foundation and implemented by Sahel Consulting, introduced the Home Garden Intervention (HGI) to communities across Northern Nigeria.

The goal was simple: help rural families grow nutritious food right where they live. In a region where malnutrition remains a stubborn challenge and access to fresh produce is often limited to those who can afford it. The concepts aimed to support rural households, especially women, with knowledge and basic farm tools and seedlings to start and maintain home gardens.

These gardens now flourish with spinach, okra, lettuce, carrots, bell pepper, and cucumber all nourishing additions to diets.

Women lead the way

Sahel Consulting designed the HGI with an objective in mind: improve nutrition among women aged 15 to 49 and empower them to lead dietary change in their households. In most Nigerian homes, women are the custodian of nutrition, they cook, care, and now, they cultivate. Since women are primarily responsible for preparing meals, equipping them with knowledge and resources is one of the most effective ways to introduce dietary diversity at the household level.

In rural Northern Nigeria, growing a garden is not just about planting seeds, it depends on whether there is enough water to keep them alive. During the rainy season, which runs from May to September, gardens thrive. However, when the rains stop completely between November to March, many communities watch their crops wither.

“In these communities, the lack of knowledge and access are barriers to practicing health-seeking nutritional behaviours,” Afees Adekunle Adeoye, the Infrastructure Lead at ALDDN, explained. “It’s easier to have these gardens during the rainy season. In the dry season, lack of water makes it much harder.”

The project initially set up communal gardens near boreholes and water pumps to ease irrigation, however something was missing. “Out of 20 people, maybe five would take it seriously,” Jonathan Makka, ALDDN’s nutrition coordinator, noted. “It was largely due to non-commitment, partly also due to proximity to water supply having a centralised garden which is close to the borehole but a bit far from their house. So, it became difficult for them to be going to the garden frequently to take care of it,” Makka added.

So, the team pivoted to a more personalised approach by supporting individual home gardens, which proved easier to monitor and more sustainable. “So far, over 1,000 home gardens have been established across over 200 rural communities, reaching 1,600 participants, with 70% of them being women,” Makka said.

Makka explained that the home-grown gardens are becoming tools for long-term nutrition security, livelihood support, and climate resilience. “We engage women groups to cultivate vegetables in small spaces around their household to improve the availability and access of these nutrient-rich crops,” Makka explains, adding that “we are particular about the kind of crops.”

Killing two birds with one stone

To address the inconsistent water supply many communities face, the programme began investing in solar-powered boreholes. This intervention transformed not just gardening, but changed lives.

The solar-powered boreholes constructed by ALDDN are essential enablers to improving nutrition, as access to clean water and proper sanitation are essential for healthy diets. During the dry season, when vegetables become scarce and expensive in local markets, home gardens irrigated by borehole water fill the gap, ensuring year-round access to fresh, nutritious food.

One harvest at a time

Over time, Aisha Isa, one of the gardeners and a farmer from Barkin Ladi LGA, has not only embraced home gardening as a way of life, but also evolved in her farming practice.

She now grows her vegetables using only organic matter for pesticides or fertilisers. “We use poultry droppings or Garlic oil, not chemical pesticides or fertilisers. I want what I grow to be safe for my children,” she said.

By 2024, Aisha had expanded her garden, using seeds from her previous harvests and introducing new crops like pumpkin and lettuce. During her latest carrot harvest, she proudly shared the success of her organic approach. “People advised me to use Urea so that the carrots would be big, but I did not listen. Now look, they still turned out big, and these ones will taste better.”

Despite her success, Aisha acknowledges that home gardening is not without its challenges. The dry season remains a major barrier. “During dry months, getting water is not easy. Sometimes we have to prioritise drinking water over watering the garden,” she explained. Pest control without chemicals also requires extra effort, and she sometimes loses crops to diseases she cannot identify or treat.

The ALDDN programme demonstrates what is possible when grassroot nutrition support is combined with the right infrastructure, even in fragile, remote communities which mirrors the newly‑launched N‑774 initiative that also aims to deliver high‑impact nutrition interventions in every LGA by strengthening local governance, promoting multi‑sector financing, and driving community ownership.