Opportunities and challenges for specialty crops: Will they sell if developed?

Abstract

The topic of this conference, biotechnology and horticultural crops, is about the ability of producers to make a profit, and how future agriculture, globally, will include specialty crops. Although we cannot accurately predict the future of technical successes or consumer acceptance of new crop varieties, we should be planning ahead, as it can take 10 or more years to bring a new technology to the market. We should be looking ahead at what the economic picture may be—knowing what farming is like today, knowing what smallholders in Africa might want, or what might be useful in the prairies of western Canada, in Florida and other regions of the world