Mobilising Horticultural Science for Rural Development

摘要

During the last decade of my involvement with the International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS) it has been especially gratifying to see the Society grow - from fewer than 2000 members in 1997, to its present 6100 individual members coming from more than 125 countries. Remarkably, this rate of growth continues and I am pleased to see that the ISHS Council, with 45 Country Members and prospects for several more, is also growing steadily. Council is providing a direct Society management voicefor more and more individual members. Given this vitality and the many faces of horticultural science served by its meetings and publications, the ISHS is finally recognising its potential to serve the particular needs of horticultural science and industry in the Developing World - a World in which too few professionals are engaged in horticultural research, education and extension, and where most of our colleagues are inadequately supported. As was pointed out so eloquently on this page by Dr. JillianM. Lenne (March 2005) and by many others (see AVRDC Working Paper 15: Horticulture for Poverty Alleviation -The Unfunded Revolution), the production of horticultural crops for home use, and for domestic and export markets has great potential to improve the health and economic welfare of smallholder farmers in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. In many cases, the missing ingredient is the key combination of region-specific knowledge and appropriate technical support - a constraint readily understood by the scientific community worldwide.