PREFACE

I congratulate the organizers with the very successful Fourth Africa Symposium on Horticultural Crops, which was held in August 1975 in Ghana. It was the first Symposium in West Africa and I especially want to point out the helpful cooperation from the Ghanaian Government; also the efforts of the Chairman and his staff, and the assistance of D.G. Coursey, ISHS representative of the Commission for Tropical and Subtropical Horticulture should be mentioned here.

It is extremely important for the developing countries to solve the problems of research, production, storage and marketing of horticultural crops and I sincerely hope the African countries can overcome many of the current problems with the help of the members of ISHS.

I am sure the many participants from neighbouring countries and also from Europe enjoyed an interesting time at the Fourth Africa Symposium on Horticultural Crops in Kumasi, Ghana.

Although it took some time to get these proceedings edited and re-typed in Europe, I hope they will be very useful to all the workers in tropical horticulture.

The Secretary General of the
International Society for Horticultural Science

Dr.G.de Bakker


WELCOME ADDRESS
Your Excellency, the Regional Commissioner, distinguished guests, participants, ladies and gentlemen,

I feel greatly honoured to be invited to be Chairman for the opening ceremony of this Symposium, and I wish on behalf of the University community to welcome all participants, especially participants from outside Ghana, and Ghanaian participants from outside the University.

This is the first time that a Symposium of this kind has been held in the University of Science and Technology and indeed in Ghana and West Africa as a whole. This Symposium is the fourth in a series of Symposia organized by the Commission for Tropical and Subtropical Horticulture of the International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS). I believe the first Symposium was held in February 1970 in Uganda, followed by a second one in Ethiopia in September 1971. The third Symposium was held in September 1973 in Kenya.

I understand that no fewer than 80 participants from the following countries are gathered here today: Kenya, Lesotho, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Senegal, Sudan, Surinam, Sweden, United Kingdom, West Germany and Ghana. I am indeed delighted to see that many distinguished persons have come to take part in this very important Symposium. There is no doubt that the Symposium has achieved one of its objectives, that is bringing together tropical Horticulturists and tropical Horticultural workers especially those in West Africa. I sincerely hope that participants will seize this opportunity to establish contacts with colleagues in their various fields of interest.

You have all assembled here today to discuss current research on horticultural crops in West Africa. The export potential and nutritive value of horticultural crops cannot be overemphasised. There is therefore an urgent need to intensive horticultural research in West Africa.

The Symposium covers various disciplines of horticulture including crop production, crop physiology, crop protection, cultivar evaluation and breeding, marketing and ornamental horticulture.

I am informed that a new body, the Ghana Institute of Horticulturists will be inaugurated during the Symposium. The Institute will be a professional society of Horticulturists in Ghana and the primary objective of the Institute will be to secure the maintenance of professional standards and the advancement of horticulture in the country. It is my fervent desire that with the establishment of the Ghana Institute of Horticulturists a remarkable transformation in horticultural development will be seen.

To break the monotony of continuous scientific sessions the organizers of the Symposium have arranged field excursions and social events. Visits will be paid to the Kumasi Zoological Gardens, the National Cultural Centre, the Crops Research Institute and the Cocoa Research Institute, and these excursions will afford you the opportunity to be introduced to aspects of Ghanaian horiculture, culture and wildlife.

Even though the Symposium programme is very crowded I hope those of you visiting U.S.T. for the first time will take the opportunity to go round the campus to enjoy its beauty of which we are so very proud.

I once more wish to say how happy we are to see you all here at U. S.T. and we hope you will enjoy your stay.

Before I take my seat it is my pleasant duty to introduce the guest speaker to deliver his address.

Distinguished guests, participants, ladies and gentlemen, I have the greatest pleasure in calling upon Commander Joy Amedume, Regional Commissioner for Ashanti to deliver his opening address for this important Symposium.

Dr.E. Bamfoe-Kwakye
Vice-Chancellor U.S.T.


KEY-NOTE ADDRESS

The importance of horticulture in the economy of a developing country cannot be overemphasized. As a science of agriculture which concerns itself with the intensive culture and production of crops and provision of aesthetic satisfaction around human habitations it has been highly recognized, respected and provided for in developed countries which have dense populations, but limited land area. In the developing countries, including West Africa, horticulture as a science is very recent.

Its scope covers production of vegetable, fruit, nursery and floricultural crops, and landscape horticulture.

Vegetable crops form an essential and indispensable part of any diet. Any housewife knows how much vegetables cost. It is therefore not strange that Ghana spends a substantial amount of foreign exchange in the importation of vegetables and fruits.

The use of many local leafy and other vegetables in the diet of a West African family provides most of the essential vitamins, and minerals which, apart from other functions help to provide the necessary resistance to some diseases. Inadequate provision of these vegetables does not only require importation of drugs and substitutes, but also serves as a drain on human resources and greatly reduces productivity.

Some of the exotic vegetable crops, such as lettuce, cabbage, cauliflower, carrots, cucumbers, sweet peppers, aubergines and string beans could be produced all year round in our West African environment.

The production of these crops may serve as a foreign exchange earner for our countries.

The success of Ghana's laudable and commendable Operation Feed Yourself (OFY) programme initiated by the Government of the NRC depends to some extent on home production of vegetables and fruits.

The need for diversification of agriculture is fully realised in many West African countries. Fruit crops such as citrus, avocado pears, mangoes, pineapples, banana (including plantain), to mention only a few, grow without much difficulty in West Africa. The development of the fruit crop industry in our countries will therefore not only ensure a balanced diet for our people but also enhance our foreign exchange earning potential. Some of these crops have two production seasons a year in our environment while in the subtropical and temperate areas production is limited to one season only. There are some variations in the season of maturity between the purely tropical and subtropical or temperate regions. Moreover, West Africa has the advantage of being nearer to the European market than her rival countries of East and West Indies, and the South American tropics. With careful planning we may also get a foot-hold in the world market for these crops.

Our friends here whose countries hold the monopoly of fruits and vegetables export should not entertain any fears about the threat our entry will pose to their trade stability. There is no doubt that with the present trend of world population explosion it is difficult to satisfy, let alone saturate the world market.

There is a flourishing trade in tropical house plants and cut flowers from the South African tropics to U.S.A. and Canada. South-East Asian tropical countries derive considerable foreign exchange from the sale of orchids in European markets. Israel and other countries in the Mediterranean also derive quite a substantial amount of foreign exchange in North America and Europe from the sale of roses and other cut flowers. West Africa can also benefit from trade in these floricultural commodities.

There is a great need for planning our villages, towns, cities and countryside to give pleasure and aesthetic satisfaction to the growing population. In our quest to feed ourselves, we should not neglect the beauty of nature. We should refrain from turning every available space into a food farm, and this includes the use of household compounds for growing vegetables. Buildings should be landscaped to give comfort and peace both at home and in the office.

Adequate recreational facilities should be provided for each community. The present stage of our development therefore needs the services of the landscape horticulturist to lay a firm foundation for modern living.

All over the world, environmental protection practices are being taken seriously. Most countries in West Africa have similar ecological zones, comprising a northern savanna, and a southern forest belt. The ravages of the recent drought in the Sahelian zone, and the threat of the southward drift of the Sahara desert must stir all West African countries to adopt afforestation programmes to prevent a further extension.

Mr. Chairman, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, the Government of the National Redemption Council has always given priority in the national budget allocations to agriculture and horticulture.

In March this year, Ghana's Head of State, Colonel I.K. Acheampong performed a sod-cutting ceremony on Ghana's biggest irrigation project in the country at Tano near Navrongo in the Upper Region. This dam, estimated to cost C 17.5 million, is to be constructed to irrigate over 1.500 hectare most of which will be used for the cultivation of vegetables.

In past years, the failure of early crops in the Upper Region, the country's main supply of vegetables, pointed to the dangers inherent in the undue dependence on rain-fed agriculture. It is with this background that the NRC Government in the National Budget for the present fiscal year of 1975/76 voted C 10 million for irrigation projects.

Mr. Chairman, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, the theme of this Symposium is Current Research on Horticultural Crops in West Africa. I may distinguish between two types of research - pure and applied. Most of you delegates here coming from University institutions and institutions of allied nature may be tempted to tend more towards pure research. However, this should not be done at the expense of applied research - the type of research whose information may be made readily available and understandable by the ordinary farmer.

This theme as I understand, will cover most if not all aspects of the field of horticulture including problems and progress in cultivar evaluation and breeding, crop production, physiology, disease and pest control, marketing, storage and processing.

As you are all aware, the best of plants can be obtained only through the use of good seed. In this direction cultivars should be evaluated carefully and selected, and desirable characters in different cultivars developed through breeding. Nurseries for the supply of improved planting materials, including flowers, should be established.

I believe that in addition to the plants already known and used as vegetables, there are a great number of wild plants whose parts are used as vegetables. Local people are very familiar with some of these and their uses. Research should be geared towards unearthing the potential of some of these plants.

In the field of post-harvest physiology, temperature plays an important factor, and vegetables and fresh fruits are best stored under frozen conditions. We must however, ask ourselves the facilities which our people have for this and think of alternative methods of storage.

Carelessness in harvesting and handling of horticultural crops predisposes the produce to diseases and lowers quality. The problem of delayed harvesting results in overripeness, stringy fruits and bitter taste.

Observations have shown that most of the diseases and pests attacking horticultural crops in West Africa are the result of indiscriminate importation of planting materials. Local vegetables have been known to be very hardy. We should examine our quarantine procedures and also research towards the elimination of these diseases that are prevalent in the country.

Mr. Chairman, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, I do not want to take too much of your time. May I however, emphasize that we in the Governments of developing nations and throughout West Africa have always had our priorities in agriculture, which is the mainstay of our economics. In doing so we have the hopes and aspirations that you will help us achieve our aim by making available your research findings to the farmer.

On behalf of the Government and on my own behalf I wish you a successful meeting and a pleasant session.

Commander Joy Amedume,
Regional Commissioner


OPENING ADDRESS
Your Excellency, Mr. Vice-Chancellor, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,

It is a very great honour and a great pleasure to be present, participating in the opening ceremony of this, the Fourth Africa Symposium on Horticultural Crops, as the representative of the Commission for Tropical and Subtropical Horticulture of the International Society for Horticultural Science.

This is the first African Horticultural Symposium to be held in West Africa. As you have already heard, the earlier meetings were held in East Africa, the first in Uganda, the second in Ethiopia and the third, two years ago, in Kenya. It is most appropriate that our first West African meeting should be held here in the Department of Horticulture of the University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, which has a long history as the first horticultural department in any West African university.

It was, Your Excellency, a great pleasure to listen to your opening speech, for it contained a great deal that we professional scientists concerned with horticulture and agriculture like to hear. I am sure we have all received much encouragement from your words. There were two points in particular which you made, however, that I found especially interesting and I hope I may discuss these very briefly before the assembled company.

First you said rightly that horticultural science is a fairly new thing in West Africa. It is indeed a fairly new thing anywhere in the world. As I shall mention later, the first steps that led eventually to the formation of the International Society for Horticultural Research were taken only about a hundred years ago. But while horticultural science may be new, the practice of horticulture itself is surely one of man's oldest activities.

Particularly here in West Africa, where so many of our major food crops are produced under systems which are essentially horticultural rather than agricultural, the practice of horticulture as the basis of man's subsistence has a very great antiquity indeed, going back for thousands of years.

Secondly, you draw attention to the importance of the applied aspects of our work. This I feel, is a concept which cannot be re-emphasized too often. Surely our work as horticultural scientists must ultimately be of service to man. Those of us who are concerned with food crops, by increasing the world food supply; with the population explosion upon us, this is daily becoming more and more important; the ornamental horticulturists by improving the environment in which we live. But our work cannot be of service to the interests of mankind unless it is put into application. Research that leads only to the preparation of an academic paper, however aesthetically beautiful that paper may be, is of little service until we have ensured that we have taken the work to extension, or at least put it into the hands of others who are in a better position to take it to extension. There is a tendency among some to regard pure science as being inherently superior to applied science; this, I am sure, is quite wrong. Applied research can, and should, be as scientifically rigorous, academically excellent and aesthetically satisfying as the most abstract of pure research, while it has the added advantage of being of useful application, which in turn should make it even more satisfying to conduct.

I would like to turn now to survey a little of the history of horticultural science which, as Your Excellency said, is quite a new thing in the world. The subject has been covered in publications of the International Society for Horticultural Science (Tindall, 1971), but for the benefit of those present here I would like to remind them that the first ever "international" congress of horticultural scientists was held in Belgium in 1864. Of course, the word international had a very different connotation then from what it has now and only the countries of Europe and North America were at that time involved. Six meetings were held subsequently at irregular intervals in the latter part of the last century and the early part of this, but is was not until 1923 that the first moves were initiated to form a permanent international body, in the form of an International Committee for Horticultural Congresses. A proposal for a permanent bureau was made in 1927, but it was not until after the Second World War, in 1955, that the International Society was suggested, and finally formed in 1959.

The Society operates from premises contributed by the generosity of the Dutch Government, as a Headquarters. Since that time the International Society for Horticultural Science has gone from strength to strength, its last fully international meeting being the 19th Congress held last year in Poland which many of those present must have attended.

The Society conducts much of its work through a series of linked Commissions and Sections. It takes a special interest in tropical horticultural science through its Commission for Tropical and Subtropical Horticulture, whose Chairman, Mr. H.D. Tindall, I am representing here today. This Commission was responsible for initiating the series of Symposia in Africa of which this is the fourth. It has also been responsible for meetings in India, while there is to be a Conference on Tropical and Subtropical Fruit held under its sponsorship in Peru in February next year.

Having said these few words, I do not wish to take up any more of your time before we proceed to the actual work of this Symposium. So I will say no more except to welcome you all in the name of the Commission for Tropical and Subtropical Horticulture to this Fourth African Symposium on Horticultural Crops.

D.G. Coursey
Official Representative, Commission for Tropical and Subtropical
Horticulture, ISHS