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 |