Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
origins of horticultural plants based on his extensive expeditions aiming to find and
study wild and semi-cultivated forms of basic crops. He concluded that much of
agriculture, and that includes horticulture, arose in Asia. The need for plants as the
basis for human diets and the manner by which this is achieved can be a powerful
engine for economic development and good. Tragically, plants can also be abused
as a source of much evil as is now being revealed through accounts of the devasta-
tions which beset the totalitarian world in the 20th Century. In the Soviet Union
(Medvedev
1987
), China (Jisheng
2012
) and North Korea (Demick
2010
), the abu-
sive manipulation of plant production led to the death of many millions of people
through deliberate starvation. Fortunately, in the majority of instances plants and
the crops that they produce are used in the improvement of mankind's well being.
Perhaps a classic example of this is Norman Borlaugh's breeding of dwarf wheat
(Khush
2001
) which helped raise cereal yields especially in developing countries
and gave India food self-sufficiency for a generation. In the 10,000 years up to 1960
the world's cereal yields had reached 1 billion tonnes per annum, in the succeeding
40 years this was doubled. More generally the "agricultural revolution" between the
1940s and the late 1970s increased agricultural and horticultural production world-
wide. Plant breeding and plant selection have continued to be vital tools bringing
success in both agricultural and horticultural systems (North
1979
; Hoisington et al.
1999
, Leitāo
2012
).
The Power of Horticulture
Plants are a power for enormous economic, environmental and social good as re-
cently summarised by the International Society for Horticultural Science's publica-
tion “Harvesting the Sun” (Anon
2012
). Export industries are powerful engines for
the world's economy through the exchange of goods and services between nations.
The total value of fruit and vegetables exchanged through worldwide exports in
2008 was $ US 180 billion. Exports represent less than 10 % of world production
since it is calculated that 93 % of fruit and vegetables are used in home consump-
tion with a total production of 2.4 billion tonnes. China has developed over the last
30 years into one of the world's biggest horticultural producers growing 19 % of
all global fruit, 38 % of all global vegetable, 45 % of all global apple and 50 % of
all global peach and nectarine production. Analyses of export trading show that the
USA exported over $ US 10 billion worth of fruit and nuts in 2010 mainly sent to
Asia, India and the European Union (EU); the Netherlands exported $ US 10 billion
worth of live plants, bulbs and cut flowers in 2010 mainly to other members of the
EU, it is well worth noting that much of this trade will involve handling produce
coming from under-developed nations in Africa and South America; and the emerg-
ing economy of Turkey exported $ US 3.5 worth of fruit and nuts in 2010 mainly to
EU states. As “Harvesting the Sun” notes “horticultural crop production is increas-
ingly shifting from countries with high land, labour and energy costs to those with
lower input expenses such as Kenya, Thailand, Vietnam, Mexico and Morocco”.
As illustrated in Table
1.1
China now dominates a considerable proportion of the
