Agrobiodiversity and nutrition in traditional cropping systems - Homegardens of the indigenous Bakiga and Banyakole in southwestern Uganda.

In Uganda many farmer households have diverse agroforestry systems known as homegardens, which have been adapted over generations to supply a year-round harvest of nutritious foods. The work presented in this dissertation sought to identify the factors that influence the agrobiodiversity of these homegardens and to assess the effects of that agrobiodiversity on the health of the households that keep them. Households (n=102) were identified via stratified, random selection across three distinct regional ecological zones of southwestern Uganda (forest-edge, deforested areas, and wetland-edge). Their homegardens contained 209 (mean 26.8 per homegarden) useful crop species (excluding weeds and ornamentals). Crop diversity response variables regressed against socio-economic and bio-physical predictor variables, indicated weak but significant relationships (Adjusted R2 between 12 to 42%, p