ISHS Acta Horticulturae 752: I International Conference on Indigenous Vegetables and Legumes. Prospectus for Fighting Poverty, Hunger and Malnutrition
INDIGENOUS VEGETABLES: CHALLENGES FOR SUSTAINING PRODUCTION AND ENHANCING QUALITY IN ASIA |
| Authors: | B.S. Ahloowalia, K.L. Chadha |
| Keywords: | Production, processing, marketing, education, extension |
| Abstract:
Asian diet is primarily rice-based, which is the main source of carbohydrates and energy. For thousands of years, Asian farmers have grown a wide range of indigenous vegetables and legumes. They play an important role in enhancing food quality and nutrition in Asia, and provide essential minerals, vitamins and amino acids that are absent in the rice-based diet. Considering the future growth of big cities and anticipated increase in population of Asia, production, grading, and packaging of vegetables in suburban areas and villages is essential to create rural employment, alleviate poverty and sustain high quality of vegetables. Increasing exports of fresh vegetables from Asia to developed countries should be regarded as only another aspect of production and processing of high quality vegetables in the suburban regions. Hence, it is essential to develop village-based infrastructures for processing, grading and packaging of fresh vegetables which should be linked to marketing in cities and export. In this review paper, the modalities to increase production and enhance quality of indigenous vegetables will be presented. These include: development of infrastructure for transportation and shipping; creation of facilities at airports for collective grading and packaging for export; contract growing, packaging and collective marketing in cities; quality control and traceability; subsidies for production of high grade vegetables; and production and distribution of high quality seed and planting materials. The safe production with minimal use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers needs to be encouraged to sustain high quality for both home consumption and export. Production and distribution of crop-specific videos and CDs to the growers based on the local agronomic practices in the native language is essential to increase production and marketing and enhance quality of indigenous vegetables. | |
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