All over the world, homegardens are spaces densely planted with crops that supply food to households and often serve to maintain significant agro-biodiversity in situ. These are also idea places to study the principles of agro-ecology, an idea elaborated on the example of the Javanese homegarden by Otto Soemarwoto in 1975. I had the privilege to advise on a global program – led by IPGRI’s Pablo Eyzaguirre – that brought together agricultural researchers from many countries with the aim to better understand homegardens. One of the fruits of that research was a book edited by Pablo and Olga Linares and published by Smithsonian, to which I contributed a chapter.
