Horticulture is the art of cultivating plants in gardens to produce food and medicinal ingredients, or for comfort and ornamental purposes. Horticulturists are agriculturists who grow flowers, fruits and nuts, vegetables and herbs, as well as ornamental trees and lawns.

Scope of Horticulture

Horticulture crops produce a higher yield per hectare than field crops.

Horticulture crops are extremely valuable because of their high nutritional value. Fruits and vegetables, in particular, provide us with a lot of vitamins and minerals.

Horticulture is very important because it improves the beauty of the environment.

Small and marginal farmers can benefit from horticulture crops.

Crop varieties with a wide variety of applications are available in the Horticulture section.

Horticultural crops benefit the environment by minimizing waste, conserving soil and water, and enhancing the farmer's socioeconomic status.

The study and practice of horticulture have been traced back thousands of years. Horticulture contributed to the transition from nomadic human communities to sedentary, or semi-sedentary, horticultural communities. Horticulture is divided into several categories which focus on the cultivation and processing of different types of plants and food items for specific purposes. In order to conserve the science of horticulture, multiple organizations worldwide educate, encourage, and promote the advancement of horticulture.

Horticulture involves plant propagation and cultivation to improve plant growth, yields, quality, nutritional value, and resistance to insects, diseases, and environmental stresses. It also includes plant conservation, landscape restoration, soil management, landscape and garden design, construction and maintenance, and arboriculture. The word horticulture is modelled after agriculture; it derives from the Latin words hortus and cultura, which mean “garden” and “cultivation”, respectively. In contrast to agriculture, horticulture does not include large-scale crop production or animal husbandry. Additionally, horticulture focuses on the use of small plots with a wide variety of mixed crops while agriculture focuses on one large primary crop at a time.

Horticultural research has a major role to play in the improvement of the horticultural industry in Kenya. For the farmers to produce good quality fruits and vegetables for the export market, research should focus on the identification of high-yielding varieties adapted to different agro ecological zones; availability of good quality planting material of the selected varieties and development of production and post-harvest technologies. Emphasis should be placed on maturity indices, post-harvest physiology, pathology and sea shipment. There is a need to diversify exports, train producers and conduct market studies. This could be done by KARI, HCDA and the Ministry of Agriculture.