Preface

The horticulture sector is very sensitive and is considerably impacted by climatic variability, which poses a threat to food security in the future. Productive and sustainable horticulture systems might help to reduce poverty in the context of climate change because they are a good source of income and nutrition. Therefore, to mitigate the ill effects of climate change and to increase and maintain food security, a holistic approach needs to be optimized. This includes understanding the climate change effect on crops, development of stress tolerant genotypes together with sustainable crop, and natural resources management, with implementation of all these efforts by sound policies. Meanwhile an increased temperature (2-4°C by 2100), rise in CO2, droughts, and floods may become more frequent in the future; therefore, emphasis needs to be on climate smart horticulture with the aim of reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, enhanced resilience, and reduced wastes to help increase the productivity of small and large scale farmers. The approach of integrated crop management (ICM) might be a base for sustainable horticulture, which includes simulation modeling and remote sensing. Meanwhile multidisciplinary breeding with emphasis on warmer and drier environments needs to be utilized as a front line approach. This will ultimately bring sustainability in crop productivity and enhancement of resources use efficiencies. ICM can reduce the use of energy intensive inputs and can increase the efficiency of production. In general, the mitigation approaches, which have synergic relationship with crop productivity and climate change, need to be used to save our future.