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Jung-Myung Lee
Professor, Department of Horticulture, Kyung Hee University,
Suwon 449-701,
Republic of Korea
Suwon 449-701,
Republic of Korea
Asia has 60% of the world population and only about 34.5% of the
world arable land. However, Asians traditionally consume very
large amount of horticultural produce and depend heavily on vegetables
for the sources of horticultural food crop. The vegetable production
in Asia is highly intensive and multiple and successive cropping
are routinely practiced. Concomitant with the rapid economic growth
in many east Asian countries, the demands for high-quality horticultural
crop have been drastically increased among many Asians and their
interest in high-quality products, outstanding cultivars, machinery
and equipment, production technology has been sharply increased
in recent years. It is therefore believed that establishing and
maintaining closer and regular relations among scientists and
societies could provide an excellent momentum for promotion of
horticulture on a global basis and both the ISHS and the ASHS
could play decisive roles for this kind of promotion.
Keywords: Production and consumption, international trade,
society members, Korean horticulture,
seeds and germ plasm, intenational association
It is rather difficult and often impossible to precisely describe
the status of horticulture in Asia, especially under the circumstance
of undergoing such rapia, especially under the circumstance
of undergoing such rapid and abrupt changes in economical and
political status during the last decades. The significance of
agriculture has always been emphasized with respect to food crops
and this trend is especially serious in many developing countries
with high population and very limited and poor arable land. Even
though horticultural crops can also be regarded as food crops
in many countries and circumstances, horticulture also provides
different, interesting, and refreshing aspects in human life and
environment. Growing horticultural crops should be distinguished
from securing the food crops because many horticultural crops
are being evaluated in terms of their quality rather than the
quantity as in many major field crops. Janick (1994) describes,
"Horticulture can be defined as the branch of agriculture
concerned with intensively cultivated plants directly used by
people for food, for medicinal purposes, or for esthetic gratification".
It should be pointed out that the term 'horticulture' is being
called as 'Gardening Art' (rather than cultivation of garden in
Greek) here in the Orient or in East Asia from ancient times.
The major objectives of this paper are
According to FAO statistics (FAO, 1995 and 1996), there are 50
countries in Asia among the 200 countries in the world (Table 1).
Total population in Asia is 3.5 billion, which is more than 60%
of the total world population of 5.76 billion. Among the population
in Asia, 60% of the people are engaged in agriculture so that
agriculture is far and away the primary industry in in Asia as
well as in the whole world.
Table 2 shows detailed data on
some Asian countries with large population. In China, 71.1% of
the total population of 1.23 billion (21.4% of the world total)
is engaged in agriculture. The percentages of agricultural population
in Bangladesh and Vietnam are over 60% and Thailand, India, and
Pakistan have agricultural population of 50% or higher. More than
40% of the entire population is engaged in agriculture in Indonesia,
Turkey, and Philippines. In contrast, only a few countries have
low agriculturn contrast, only a few countries have
low agricultural population rate; 5.3% in Japan, 10.7% in Iraq,
and 12.8% in Korea (S), thus showing extreme variations in agricultural
population in Asia.
Tables 3 and 4
show the total and arable land areas of the world. Asia has 3.14
billion ha of total land area, which is 23.7% of the world total
of 13.38 billion ha. Asia also has 0.47 billion ha of arable land
which is 34.5% of the world arable land of 1.36 billion ha. Per
capita arable land is Asia is far below the world average of 0.236
ha. North-Central (NC) America and Europe have 0.585 and 0.470
ha, respectively. Arable land area per capita engaged in agriculture
is 0.240 ha in Asia which is far below the world average of 0.525
ha, 5.29 ha in NC America, and 4.176 ha in Europe. These data
provide the evidence that struggles and perhaps wars for securing
food sources would be inevitable for the very existence and maintenance
of human life in many parts of Asia. It should also be pointed
out that there are great variations in the standards of living
depending upon the countries in Asia and the same is true for
the rest of the world. There has been a fantastic economic growth
in some Asian countries for the last several decades. However,
the unbalanced economic towers in some of those countries have
been thc towers in some of those countries have
been thoroughly shaken up recently and they had to shed all the
showy leaves and flowers. Whether they are ready or not, they
should now undergo a long, cold winter with naked branches waiting
for the spring. However, it is generally accepted that the financial
ruin or collapse in some east Asian countries also influences
the economy of developed countries such as Japan, Singapore, Taiwan,
and perhaps China, and may eventually influence the world economy
stability too.
Cultivation area of agricultural crops is shown in Table 5.
Asian people grow and consume rice for the major food crop and
thus about 90% of the world rice is produced in Asia. Percent
cultivation area of rye and oats is much lower than the world
average (6.1 and 6.8% of the world total). Sweet potato is also
important crop in Asia. Among the horticultural crops, it is worthwhile
to note that vegetables are quite popular among Asian people.
The percent share of Asia in world vegetable cultivation area
is 66.5%, which may be regarded as extremely high as compared
to the world average or to those of other continents. The cultivation
area of vegetables in Asia is 2.33 times larger than that of fruits.
However, in most other countries, the cultivation area of fruits
are considerably larger than vegetables (Lee et al., 1994). This
inrger than vegetables (Lee et al., 1994). This
indicates that vegetables are the major and most important horticultural
crops in Asia not only in cultivation areas but also in other
aspects such as life style, environment, economy, industry, research
and education as described later in detail
Table 6 shows that per capita
production (or consumption) of horticultural crops in some Northeast
Asian countries (Lee et al., 1994). It can be easily seen that
vegetables are the major horticultural crops in Northeast Asian
countries especially in China, Japan, Korea (North), Korea (South),
and Taiwan. The ratios of vegetables to fruits are very high in
these countries from 1.93 in Taiwan to 5.38 in Korea (S). This
preference of vegetables among the Asian people has resulted in
similar consequences in general horticultural areas; a large number
of industries involved with vegetable seeds and seedlings production,
fertilizer and agrochemical production and distribution companies,
storage and processing industries, and others. In addition, it
is quite natural to find a larger number of research scientists
working on vegetables in universities and colleges, governmental
and private research institutes, and consequently a large number
of research papers being presented at annual meetings of horticultural
society and other related academic societies in many Asian countries.
Research fund and budget also show similar trenrch fund and budget also show similar trends, in general.
Fermented and partially preserved vegetables are quite popular
in Northeast Asian countries such as Japan, China, and Korea.
For an example, the history of pickles in Japan is dated back
to the pre-historic times, approximately 4,500 years ago. Many
vegetables such as radish, Chinese cabbage, cucumber, and eggplant
are pickled in many homes in Japan and other countries, but fairly
a large amount of pickled vegetables are being traded between
China, Thailand, Taiwan, and other nearby Asian countries (Inden
et al., 1997).
Kimchi is a traditional fermented vegetable mix originated in
Korea but now is being traded all over the world. Kimchi has its
unique palatability giving sour, sweet, and carbonated taste.
Approximately 300,000 ton of commercial kimchi products was produced
by 337 processing factories in Korea in 1996 (Park, 1997) and
export of kimchi has been increased drastically since last year.
Hot pepper and garlic are vital ingredients for many kinds of
kimchi. There are at least 187 different types of kimchi with
distinctive recipes (Koo et al., 1991). These unique types of
processed vegetables can now be found at any parts of the world
from Australia to Canada (Nguyen et al., 1997; Wang, 1997) manufactured
in commercial scale.
Data on individual horticultural crop is shown in Table 7. Tomato, watermelon, cabbages, onion, and cucumber are 5 major vegetables in Asia and this coincides with the order in world total. Among the vegetables, garlic and eggplants are cultured mainly in Asia (87.3% and 90.3%), but carrot and green pea are not receiving much attention in Asia, as compared to other continents. Fruit data is expressed in production (1,000 ton) rather than cultivation area. Banana, including plantain, is by far the most abundant fruit in the world followed by oranges, grape, and apple. However, in Asia, apple is the first one followed by banana, mango, grape, and orange. There has been a tremendous increase in apple planted acreage in China and this will undoubtedly influence the apple industry in the East Asia and in the world in the near future (FAO, `997, Internet Search, fao.org/default.htm). Except for mango, the percentage is rather low in many fruits. The vegetable cultivation in Asia is indeed very advanced and characterized by the followings.
Vegetable and fruit production acreage in some Asian countries
are further shown in Tables 8
and 9. China and India are the
leading countries for vegetable production acreage followed by
Turkey and Indonesia. However, fruit production acreage is highest
in China followed by Turkey, Iran, and Indonesia. As far as production
acreage is concerned, Asia has 66% of the world total vegetable
production acreage as compared to only 44% of the world fruits
production acreage. China has about 50% of the total Asian vegetable
production acreage and 43.9% of the total Asian fruit production
acreage, thus indicating that the Asian trade of horticultural
products can be significantly influenced by only a few countries
in Asia or by China alone! During the last 10 years, the protected
cultivation acreage is China has been increased 17 times and the
per capita consumption of vegetables also was almost doubled from
119.8 kg/year/person to 217.2 kg/year/person (Zhang, 1997). Average
yield of vegetables per unit area was also more than doubled during
the last 10 years. Introduction of promising, new hybrid cultivars
may be responsible for this remarkable increases in yield per
unit area. On the contrary, however, the use of hybrid seeds for
vegetable production is extremely low in India (Table 10),
thus needing urgent attention and introduction of good hybrid
cultivars (Agrawal, 1997).
Individual vegetable production statistics are further shown in
Table 9. Potatoes are the major
vegetable crop in many Asian countries, not as vegetables in many
circumstances but as an important food crop. Cauliflower, carrot,
and eggplant are being cultivated only in some countries whereas
cabbage, tomato, pumpkin, cucumber, onion, and watermelon are
being cultivated in most Asian countries. Data base used in this
report was mostly obtained from FAO Yearbook or internet FAO (fao.org/default.htm).
However, even these data were not quite accurate and sometimes
classified in different ways so that true data could not be easily
accessible. Table 11 gives the
production statistics on peppers. Dried hot peppers are one of
the important vegetable crops (or spice) and frequent international
trades have been taken during the last 10 years. The data shows
that the pepper producing area in India is more than 1.2 million
ha. However, the FAO classification is very confusing and expressed
inproperly so that more reliable as well as more accurate data
should be compiled and available for precise evaluation and comparison
of production statistics on a global basis. The data shown in
Tablhown in
Tables 10 and 11
indicate again that more precise data is needed for possible accurate
analysis of present production status and to set up goals for
future guide for production and international trade.
The significance and preferences of vegetables among Asian people
can be easily proven by the earlier establishment and maintenance
of the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center (AVRDC),
an international research center financed by USA, ADB, Taiwan,
and other Asian countries. AVRDC is the international research
and training organization established in 1970, responsible for
improving production and quality of selected vegetables and legume
crops in the hot, humid lowland tropics. AVRDC had the following
initial objectives (Marlowe, 1989) and the activities are considered
to be very fruitful, especially in southeast Asian countries.
World trade of some major crops is shown in Tables 12
and 13. Due to the high population
and limited arable land area, many Asians are experiencing food
scarce and thus depend highly on imported foods from other continents
or countries. As shown in Table 12,
grains account for more than 50% of the world trade followed by
wheat and flour (23%), maize (8-9%), and rice (3%). Among the
horticultural crops (Table 13),
banana, sometimes including plantains, is ranking number one in
total amount of international export followed by oranges (including
tangerines and mandarins), apple, potatoes and tomato. Pineapple
(canned) is the only item which is mainly exported from Asia and
most other horticultural crops are mostly exported from other
continents. Asia does not import a large amount of horticultural
crops, either. Major importer of horticultural crops is Europe,
accounting for 50-80% of the total import for most horticultural
crops. Potatoes and tomatoes are the major vegetables being traded
worldwide.
Horticultural activities such as research, education, production,
and industries are depending critically upon the number of horticulturists
and specialists. In a given country, the number of registered
members in any international horticultural society could be a
good indication for the measure of global horticultural activities.
more detailed information on paid-upl activities.
more detailed information on paid-up membership can be obtained
from both ISHS and ASHS. A more detailed study on researchers
active in the field of horticulture will be avilable from ISHS
within the coming year, under the new publication HRI (Horticultural
Research International) directory.
The Republic of Korea is probably one of the very few countries
in the world with huge annual increases in governmental as well
as Research foundation fund for horticultural research. The importance
of horticultural products has been recognized in various different
ways. For example, the percent share of the total amount of horticultural
produce in all agricultural produces (including livestock and
forest products) in 1995 was increased up to 24.4% for vegetables
and 11.3% for fruit. These values clearly indicate the importance
of horticulture and horticultural industry. Similar trends have
been maintained for last 5 years. The activity of the Korean Society
for Horticultural Science (KSHS) members can be clearly confirmed
by the number of registered KSHS members (+1,500), number of registered
ASHS members and ISHS members, number of papers presented at the
annual meeting of the KSHS (Table 15
and 16), and the occupation
of authors delivering the papers at the meeting (Table 17).
At the spring and fall meetings, several well-known scientists
or horticulturists have been officially invited from other countries
for special lectures. The KSHS also held several ISHS international
symposia for the last few years and plans to host several more
symposia in the next few years; on peppers, postharvest, and use
of bioregulators in fruits, etc. At the last ISHS international
symposium on vegetable quality which was held in Seoul, Korea
from October 27 to 30, 1997, we had 120 participants from 23 countries.
Acta containing about 55 papers will be published in July this
year (before the 1998 IHC in Belgium). The KSHS plans to celebrate
its centennial anniversary of the official launching of modern
horticultural research in Korea. The Agricultural Demonstration
Station was established in 1906 in Suwon and, after several changes
of its official name, has now become the Rural Development Administration
(RDA) of the Korean Government, the center for agricultural and
horticultural researches in Korea.
Since vegetables are the major horticultural crops in Asia, considerable
efforts have been focused on vegetable breeding and a large amount
of vegetable seeds are being exported to Western countries. Brassica
crops (cabbage, Chinese cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower) and
radishes are some of the vegetables for export from Asia. Some
seed companies in Japan, Korea (S), and perhaps Taiwan have been
operating overseas companies or branch stations in other countries
including the USA and also exporting contries
including the USA and also exporting considerable amount of seeds.
However, we expect some significant changes in seed industry because
multinational seed companies such as Novatis and others began
to operate official business in some Asian countries with their
good seeds, advanced seed processing and cultivar identification
technology in addition to the modern purity test methods.
With the rapid expansion of globalization under the influence
of WTO, the world market for agricultural and horticultural produces
has been increasing very rapidly and this, along with the introduction
of noble cultivars with accurate identity so that the breeding
efforts can be protected by the UPOV. However, such a rapid change
does not likely take place due possibly to the very conservative
attitude of Asian people, especially in their diet habit. In addition
to good seeds of excellent traits, gradual and persuasive approaches
are thought to be vital for the successful operation and maintenance
of branch companies and persistent sales and distribution of seeds
and other propagation materials. In spite of the sudden recent
break on economic growth in some Asian countries, the role and
significance of Asian horticulture will be persistently increased
in the future, particularly in breeding, production, and utilization
of horticultural products, especially of the vegetables. Horticulture
in Asia will be of the vegetables. Horticulture
in Asia will be continuing its steady progress and exerts significant
role in world horticulture based on the following fact.
Agrawal, P. K. 1996. The Indian Seed Industry. TVIS Newsletter
1(2): 4-5. AVRDC, Tainan, Taiwan.
1) Conduct research on production and marketing programs to assist
participating countries in developing their own adaptive research
programs.
2) Carry out training in production and marketing programs and
to assist participating countries in developing more efficient
training and marketing programs.
3) Develop and provide basic information on improved production
and marketing for use in extension services in participating countries.
7. International trade of horticultural products
Total amounts of export and import in Asian countries and some
other countries are shown in Table 14.
International trade of fruits and vegetables i.
International trade of fruits and vegetables in Asian countries
and some other countries of the world can be obtained from FAO
Homepage (fao.org/default.htm). Based on the total amount of export
excess value, major exporting countries in Asia are Philippines,
Israel, Syria, Turkey, and Myanmer, in that order. On the world-wide
basis, however, Chile upsurged recently as the largest exporting
country followed by Costa Rica, Ecuador, and New Zealand, in that
order. The largest importing countries in the world are Canada
and Russia, which are located in cold northern hemisphere. The
largest importing countries in Asia are Israel, Hong Kong (now
in China), Pakistan, Oman, and Philippines, in that order. However,
the trade difference (export-import) is largest in Oman, followed
by Hong Kong, Bahrain, Qator, and Pakistan. It is interesting
to note that many of these importing countries are developing
countries rather than developed ones, thus indicating that accumulation
of high production technology rather than man-power is vital for
producing and exporting "high quality" horticultural
products.
Some Asian countries with large population, for example China,
India, Indonesia, and Japan (71.7% of total Asian population in
these 4 countries), do export and import horticultural products.
However, the total amount and the differences between export and
import are surprisingly low, thus meaning that production system
for self-supply ning that production system
for self-supply is well stabilized in these countries. Even though
vegetables are very much favored by many Asian people, most of
these horticultural products are being traded mostly among nearby
countries with the exception of some fruits and ornamental plants.
For example, Korea (S) imported a large amount of fresh and processed
vegetables from China (Lee, 1994) and the amounts have been increasing
steadily (FAO, 1996, 1998; Lee et al., 1994). On the contrary,
Korea (S) exports considerable amount of fresh and processed vegetables
such as pine mushroom, kimchi, dried mushroom, onion, and cucumber
exclusively to Japan (FAO, 1998 Internet). Kimchi, which symbolizes
the Korean traditional eating preferences because of its unique
delicate flavor and taste, is exported to all over the world,
sometimes even under wrong name of 'Kimuchi', and now officially
regarded as the well-known delicacies of the world and in every
Olympic Games! In spite of the large amount of horticultural products,
the amount of international trade has never been impressive until
recently. The bulk of horticultural crops compared to cereals
or grains may be partially responsible for this. The maintenance
of freshness in fresh vegetables and fruits would be possible
only for short-distance transport. The dissimilarity in crops
is another reason for this trend of international trade.
Furthermore, following regions or so called free trade following regions or so called free trade agreements
(or areas) all over the world tended to aggravate the local trade
tendency in some way or another. These are ASEAN (Association
of South East Asian Nations, 9 countries), NAFTA (North American
Free Trade Agreement, 3 countries), CERTA (Close Economic Relation
Trade Agreement, 2 countries), EU (European Union, 15 countries),
LAIA (Latin American Integration Association, 9 countries), and
many more agreements or areas such as Asian Pacific Region (APEC),
East African Community, etc. The role and significance of ASEAN
and AFTA(ASEAN Free Trade Area) have been drastically increasing
until recently. However, financial crisis or ruin in some Asian
countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, and Korea will greatly
influence the ASEAN activities at least for 5-10 years. The role
of OECD and APEC will be emphasized with relation to economies
in Asian countries especially with the launching of WTO (World
Trade Organization).
8. Professional workers engaged in Horticultural research
and their activity
9. Expanding horticultural research and industry in Korea
(case study)
The RDA now has National Horticultural Research Institute, Horticultural
Sections in 3 Agricultural Experiment Stations, 9 Provincial RDAs,
and 23 Commodity Experiment Stations mandated with horticultural
crops. In addition to about 40 universities and colleges which
have the department of horticulture, there are many private research
institut, there are many private research
institutes including 42 seed companies. Considering the total
population of 45 million and only about 10% agricultural population
(as of Dec 1997), the figures are rather too high as compared
to most other developed countries. The export of horticultural
produce is not impressive either except for some crops. For example,
more than 70% of the grafted cacti being auctioned at Netherlands
flower markets are exported from Korea. Korea also exports lilies
and roses to Japan. Detailed data will be presented at the conference.
Unfortunately, import has always well exceeded export as far as
floricultural crops are concerned. With the booming of horticulture
in Korea, the KSHS is very anxious to have the chance to become
the host country for the 2006 IHC here in Korea rather than continual
every other host in European countries.
10. Role of seed companies and handling of germ plasm
11. Conclusions
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