Predicted climate change impact

Impact on vegetable cultivation

Key potential research areas

Pollinator decline

Reduced fruit/seed set.

Reduced yield for fruits/seed-based vegetables [74]

● Pollinator diversity assessments

● Creating crop-pollinator matches

● Documentation of key pollinator refugia

● Development of pollinator conservation strategies

New emerging vegetable diseases

Various, some yet

unknown [75]

● Understand vector biology of existing diseases

● Predict vector geographical shifts with climate change

Increase in droughts and number of dry days

Reduced yield, Impact on pest cycles [76]

● Determination of drought tolerance for different vegetables taxa

● Determination of optimal water requirements for various vegetables

● Breeding for drought tolerance

Increase of heat waves

Increased water demand

Increase in labor needs

● Determination of optimal water requirements for various vegetables

Soil fertility decline and degradation

Reduced vegetable productivity

● Feasibility of vegetable “conservation cultivation”

● Exploring suitable biofortification approaches

● Feasibility of composting and other manure yielding enterprises

Fragmented and small land holdings

Reduced vegetable output

● Designing and testing technologies that maximize vegetable yield on small land holdings e.g. intercropping