Ber and other Jujubes monograph.pdf - Crops for the Future

Preface
Jujubes are considered to be minor fruits and, from a research and development
point of view, have not received any major emphasis from governments.
However the fruits are an integral part of the culture and way of life of millions
of diverse Asian peoples and have also become so for large regions of Africa
after the major cultivated species were introduced.
There has been sustained recognition from scientists, particularly those in
national agricultural programmes, that these fruits can be exploited much more
widely due to their value in human nutrition and the added benefits to rural
people of other products from a multipurpose tree. Additionally the trees are
hardy and can be cultivated in a very wide range of climatic and agroecological
zones thereby making them of great value in agricultural and human
development in areas where intensive agriculture is not currently feasible.
When the International Centre for Underutilised Crops (ICUC) initiated a
project on Fruits for the Future one of the first monographs to be produced
focused on Indian jujube or ber (Ziziphus mauritiana). This was authored by Dr
O.P. Pareek and issued in 2001. ICUC was gratified to note the great demand
for this monograph (over 1200 copies in 5 years) and also to note that research
was accelerating in the period since it was issued. Continual requests for more
information, especially from Africa, led ICUC to decide that a revised
monograph was needed. This book is the result of that decision; it draws, as
would be expected, heavily on the initial work of Dr Pareek, to whom ICUC
again expresses its thanks.
This is a multiauthored publication and we would like to thank the authors for
their contribution. The preparation and publication of the original monograph
and the present one has been funded by the Department for International
Development (DFID), UK. The goal of the Fruits for the Future Project is to
provide a useful compendium on a priority underutilised fruit to researchers,
teachers, students, extensionists, growers, traders and policy makers in the hope
that it could encourage enhanced production, processing and marketing of
jujubes.
ICUC expresses its thanks to DFID and to the numerous national scientists and
others who have contributed in one way or another to the two monographs.
Editors 2006
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