Pandemic impacts on experiences of food gardening in New Zealand: Implications for food wellbeing during Covid-19 lockdown

• Participants gardened mostly at home, with some gardening in community gardens/other locations • Almost two-thirds of participants reported mental or physical wellbeing as important for why they gardened during lockdown • Participants prioritised gardening for physical and mental wellbeing during lockdown, over healthy food production (the primary reason for gardening before lockdown) • Food wellbeing requires consideration of cultural wellbeing when applied to food gardening contexts • Food wellbeing requires a consideration of the interrelationality of multiple aspects of physical, psychological, social, cultural and ecological wellbeing, when applied to e.g. across public health promotion, mental wellbeing, environmental and urban planning, and food system resilience domains This study provides insight into ways in which food gardening experiences may have changed for Aotearoa New Zealand food gardeners during the country’s first Covid-19 lockdown. This paper explores self-reports of food gardening practices, and of access to food gardens, reasons for gardening, and the importance of food gardens and food gardening to people engaging with them before and during lockdown. Data were collected via an anonymous quantitative and qualitative online survey. Of the participants’ responses analysed (n=266), they gardened for food mostly at home, with some food gardening in communal food gardens/other locations. Results are considered through an holistic lens of food wellbeing, with regards to food production and consumption, that considers aspects of physical, psychological, social, cultural, and ecological health. Findings indicate changes to food gardening experiences in the Covid-19 lockdown period, which have implications for wellbeing: Gardening to grow culturally relevant food increased in importance during lockdown for Māori and Pacific Island participants; and, nearly two-thirds of all participants reported food gardening for mental or physical wellbeing during lockdown compared to only half of participants before Covid-19. Further, participants deprioritised gardening for the purpose of growing healthy food during lockdown, with about two-thirds of respondents listing this in their top three reasons for food gardening compared to three-quarters before lockdown.