This chapter examines the diversity of horticultural production systems practised in
the tropics. With this knowledge it will then be possible to review the variety and relevance
of the specific production practices employed in the successful growing of vegetables
(in Chapter 4) and fruits and flowers (in Chapter 5) in the tropical environment.
Production systems that take resources, natural and human, and transform them
into horticultural products can be classified according to temporal, spatial, economic
and social criteria. Next, within the production systems the particular farming system,
the cropping sequence, pattern and management can be further classified according to
conformity within specifically defined classes or groups. It must be recognized that no
two farms, even if adjacent, would have identical farming systems. This would be even
more so for horticultural enterprises than for those producing grain, dairy or meat
products, for the diversity of horticultural commodities and their means of production
far exceed those of broad-acre and animal-based systems.
In this chapter we explore the variety of horticultural production systems in the
tropics, starting with the most basic of subsistence and leading to the most technologically
demanding of sophisticated export systems, but first we will consider some
of the producer decision making conditioned by the production system, and a discussion
of a proposed functional grouping of horticultural species.