Problems and Prospects of Vegetable Production Improvement in India: A Review
Sukanya Daisy Bora
Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat – 785013, Assam, India.
G C Bora *
Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat – 785013, Assam, India.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
The global imperative to increase food production in a sustainable manner, with the objective of feeding a growing population without compromising the planetary systems upon which agriculture depends, is particularly urgent in the context of vegetable crop production. India is the world's second-largest producer of vegetables, yet persistent structural, agronomic, environmental, and socio-economic challenges constrain the sector's potential to ensure nutritional security and rural livelihoods at the scale that both the nation's population and its agricultural heritage demand. This review examines the principal problems confronting vegetable production in India—including degraded soil health, water scarcity, excessive agrochemical dependency, severe post-harvest losses, climate vulnerability, seed system deficiencies, and fragmented market linkages—alongside the most promising emerging prospects for sectoral transformation. This narrative approach was adopted because the breadth of the subject matter—spanning agronomy, ecology, economics, public health, and institutional policy—precludes the construction of a single, replicable search string capable of capturing the full range of relevant evidence within a unified quantitative synthesis framework. Drawing on peer-reviewed literature published between 2000 and 2026 and authoritative institutional data, the review synthesises evidence on technological interventions encompassing precision agriculture, protected cultivation, integrated pest management, genomics-assisted breeding, sustainable production systems, and digital value chain development. The analysis reveals that while production volumes have expanded substantially over the past two decades, yield gaps remain wide relative to global benchmarks, and the environmental and nutritional dimensions of vegetable farming are inadequately addressed by current policy frameworks. Sustainable intensification, inclusive market development, climate-adaptive variety improvement, and targeted public investment in research, extension, and post-harvest infrastructure are identified as the most consequential pathways toward a resilient, productive, and nutrition-sensitive vegetable sector. The article concludes by delineating priority areas for future research and calls for coherent policy integration across agricultural, nutritional, and environmental governance domains.
Keywords: Vegetable production, sustainable intensification, protected cultivation, precision agriculture, food and nutrition security, integrated pest management, climate adaptation