More Than Half Of Czech Households Grow Their Own Food

The growing of one’s own food is deeply rooted in Czech society, and roughly half of Czech households have been doing so for a long time. Photo credit: Freepik.

Brno, June 6 (BD) – More than half of Czech households grow their own fruit and vegetables; for a fifth of them, their homegrown produce is an important source of food, comparable to what they buy from stores. This follows from data provided by the Czech Social Science Archive to researchers from the SYRI National Institute. 55% of households already grow their own produce, another 7% are considering it, 11% are not currently growing fruit and vegetables, but used to, and 27% of households are not considering this option.

“If we look at these data in more detail, for 19% of households, home-grown food is an important source at the level of purchases from stores,” said Jan Vávra, a sociology researcher at SYRI and the Czech Academy of Sciences. A further 37% of households use homegrown food as a supplementary resource.

“The interesting thing is that if we apply the results to the entire population, cultivation is an important source of fruit and vegetables for about 10% of households, which is more than those who buy online or use delivery services,” added Vávra, whose previous research has already drawn attention to the increasing importance of gardening for Czech households.

Although the growing of one’s own food is deeply rooted in Czech society, and roughly half of Czech households have been doing so for a long time, recently a slightly increasing trend can be observed, boosted by the Covid-19 pandemic, and now also by rising prices. “Rather than food self-sufficiency, the motivation is food sovereignty, emphasising the ability to choose one’s food sources,” says Vávra.

Scientists are continuously monitoring the data on home-growing of food, not only during the pandemic but also now thanks to the SYRI database, provided by the Czech Social Science Archive. Analysing the context of gardening can provide a range of information, which could also be useful for public administration purposes.

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