A FOCUS ON HUMAN ISSUES IN HORTICULTURE: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE OPENING PLENARY COLLOQUIUM - APPLYING THE ART AND SCIENCE OF HORTICULTURE TO IMPROVING HUMAN LIFE QUALITY

Issues addressed under the theme of HIH cover the full range of impacts of plants on people. They include social and health benefits, economic and marketing issues, activities involving special populations (horticultural therapy), environmental amelioration, ethnobotany issues or considerations as they apply to horticulture, and the applications of horticulture in, or contributions of horticulture to art, music, drama, and philosophy. Topics at international HIH meetings have included healing landscapes, horticultural therapy, school gardening, community gardening, and other psycho-social issues. Economics and marketing, farming systems, fruits, vegetables and herbs in relationship to health, environmental benefits and protection, and horticultural education have also been addressed. A number of scientific horticulture publications have devoted special issues to such topics (Relf, 1992, 1995; Matsuo and Relf, 1995; Lohr, 2000; Verdonck et al., 2000). However, it has only been in the last 25 years that significant research has addressed these aspects of horticulture and plant usage. Research in HIH nearly always depends on interdisciplinary collaboration for successful implementation, particularly where data are collected directly from humans. Thus, people working in HIH come from a wide range of disciplines like horticulture, landscape architecture, architecture, environmental psychology, geography, sociology and medicine, and reports of HIH-related research can appear in the journals of any of these fields. Recent papers on the status of HIH have reviewed a number of studies from these diverse fields (Relf and Dorn, 1995; Lohr and Relf, 2000; Relf and Lohr, 2003).

The areas impacted by implications of HIH reach far beyond horticulture. For example, in 2002 a USA national task force recognized the key role that horticulture and other aspects of urban agriculture play in the future of our urban communities and their influence on agricultural profitability (Butler and Maronek, 2002). The USA Department of Energy’s Smart Communities Network (2003) recommended the use of trees as one strategy for developing sustainable communities by reducing carbon emissions and energy consumption, and Hillary Clinton, while First Lady in the USA, promoted the planting of trees and the protection of heritage trees to enhance cities across the nation (Clinton, 2000). As public officials become increasingly aware of the importance of the human life quality side of horticulture, the relevance of this arena is becoming increasingly clear to leaders of our own profession as well as to those in other professions. Policy makers and professionals working in such areas as community and economic development, housing, crime prevention, and public health are beginning to appreciate and promote the benefits that plants can provide (see for example, GHASP, 1999; Little, 2002).

We are fortunate in horticultural science to be working with produce and other outcomes that people genuinely enjoy and need. People are drawn to our products, whether they are strawberries, carrots, oak trees, or roses. Horticultural environments and commodities satisfy physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. This colloquium addressed the important bond that exists between plants and human needs and desires and placed this field clearly within a context of relevancy to the world's future.

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