Horticulture on the rise

There are efforts aimed at encouraging commercial and smallholder farmers to increase horticulture vegetables production, using greenhouse DANIEL ESSIET reports.

The commercial greenhouse market is projected to reach $36,121.941 million by 2026, given the massive use of   greenhouses to grow vegetables, flowers, trees, ornamentals, and shrubs.

Research Dive, an international market research firm based in Pune, India, also forecast that global greenhouse horticulture market could hit $66,419.9 million in 2028.

Fuelling the global greenhouse horticulture market growth, according to the report, is the  demand for healthy food across the globe.

With million of jobs needed to be created in Africa to prevent youth unemployment, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) believes  horticulture can help countries on the continent  contribute to building sustainable livelihoods, improve incomes by providing urban populations with crops such as fruits and vegetables.

Sadly, Nigeria has lost a chunk of its global market share in horticulture in the last 10 years. However, countries, such as Kenya, are recording jumps in exports of fruits and vegetables, which have moved from 200,000 tonnes to 350,000 tonnes.

Nigerian farmers have not been able to take advantage of the huge potential in  fresh produce domestically and internationally due to lack of capacity to produce all-year round, hurting its prospects.

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Photo by Ally Asuncion on Unsplash

Source: The Nation