Urban and Home-Based Vegetable Gardening Practices in Ethiopia: A Review on Challenges, Opportunities, and...

Rapid urbanization, driven by the search for better opportunities and improved living conditions, has led to rising unemployment and limited access to nutritious and affordable food. Urban and home-based vegetable gardening has emerged as a practical strategy to address food insecurity, malnutrition, and environmental degradation in rapidly urbanizing areas. This review synthesizes evidence from peer-reviewed articles published between 2015 and 2025 (following PRISMA protocol) to assess the status, challenges, and opportunities of home vegetable gardening in Ethiopia. It highlights key challenges, including limited access to land and clean water, gendered barriers to women, limited technical knowledge, inadequate extension services, and weak institutional support, all of which hinder production and sustainability. Moreover, the widespread use of untreated wastewater for irrigation poses significant health and environmental risks due to heavy metal contamination and causes soil-transmitted infectious diseases. Despite these challenges, opportunities such as utilizing vacant urban lots, promoting vertical gardening, and supporting local seed production remain untapped. Furthermore, although government support for urban gardening has grown recently, its implementation remains inconsistent. This review also identifies a significant geographical gap within the literature, with gardening practices and interventions concentrated in Addis Ababa, Sidama, Amhara, and Tigray. Effective interventions should focus on expanding and scaling up, enhancing institutional capacity, strengthening extension systems, encouraging sustainable practices, and integrating urban vegetable gardening into broader food system planning. Addressing these issues can enhance the role of vegetable gardening as a vital element of resilient urban development and food system transformation.