Vegetables
are considered essential for well-balanced diets. The production and marketing
of vegetables crops are undergoing continuous change globally. This is mainly
due to the growing demands of consumers for safe and healthy vegetables,
increased urbanisation of societies, and the growth in scale and influence of
supermarkets chains. Horticultural science can respond to many of these
challenges through research, breeding and innovation that can seek to gain
more efficient methods of crop production, refined post-harvest storage and
handling methods, newer and higher value vegetable cultivars and
demonstration of their health benefits. Vegetable breeding has to address and
satisfy the needs of both the consumer and the producer. Innovation in
vegetable breeding depends on specific knowledge, the development and
application of new technologies, access to genetic resources, and capital to
utilise them. The driving force behind this innovation is acquiring or
increasing market share. Access to technology, as well as biodiversity, is
essential for the development of new vegetable cultivars. A few multinational
corporations, whose vast economic power has effectively marginalized the role
of public sector breeding as well as local, small/medium-scale seed
companies, dominate the global vegetable seed trade. For most vegetable crops,
only a few multinational seed corporations are controlling large part of the
world market. This situation makes a growing part of the global vegetable
supply dependent on a few seed providers. The multinational seed corporations
ensued from merging some small or medium vegetable breeding programs to reduce costs. There may be fewer vegetable breeders in the future and growers will rely on seeds with a narrow genetic
base. In order to meet future needs of vegetable breeders it is important that
educational programs incorporate rapidly changing new technologies with
classical content and methods. Active and positive connections between the
private and public breeding sectors and large-scale gene banks are required to
avoid a possible conflict involving breeders’ rights, gene preservation and
erosion. Horticulturists will need to develop cultural practices and
vegetable breeders to breed vegetables for a multifunctional horticulture (diversity, health promotion, post-harvest, year round suply, etc.) and to cope
with harsher climate conditions and lower inputs than they have come to
expect. Improved production systems that can cope with climate extremes must
allow vegetables to produce under high temperatures, greater drought stress,
increased soil salinity, and periodic flooding. This will involve a combination
of improved vegetable cultivars and modified production systems.