**1. Introduction**

Today's agriculture regularly uses sophisticated technologies such as robots, temperature and moisture sensors, aerial images, and GPS technology. These advanced devices and precision agriculture and robotic systems allow businesses to be more profitable, efficient, safer, and more environmentally friendly. Farmers who aim to increase their yields must have an efficient irrigation system at hand. Providing plants with the appropriate amount of water directly improves the development of the plants and, consequently, the crop yields. In the past, agricultural production in Ghana has been heavily reliant on rainfall, while fertilizers and pesticides have been inappropriately used, partly due to a lack of extension services. Overall, farmers struggled with their farm operations and adoption of improved technologies due to the huge gap between technology development and information access to information on them. But now, Ghana is facing a bright future following the intervention of science, technology, and innovation in agricultural production. Agriculture is becoming a profitable venture and using suitable scientific approaches, Ghanaian farmers are beginning to reap the benefits of their efforts.

Vegetable growers face a variety of challenges, including pests and diseases, labor shortages, and climate change. Most vegetable production in Ghana is carried out by smallholder farmers who use basic farm implements on their farms. Production takes place predominantly on raised beds, ridges, or bare ground in open fields. Furthermore, cultivation is often under a rainfed system which only allows for production within two seasons or even one season of the year depending on the location of the farm within the country. Supplementary irrigation may be provided at the nursery and early field establishment stage using either watering cans, buckets, knapsack sprayers, and sometimes small motorized pumps or various combinations of these methods. Over-reliance on rainfall for vegetable production and the erratic nature of rainfall patterns in recent years, a consequence of climate change, often results in severe losses due to poor yield in the event of drought or long dry spells.

In the last few decades, several "smart" technologies have been developed for the vegetable production and processing of vegetables. Some of which include nursery management technology, protected or screenhouse vegetable cultivation, grafting technology, and information technology in vegetable production. Nevertheless, vegetable growers are confronted with a variety of challenges when considering adopting new technology or adjusting existing technology. Growers are being offered solutions that might not work in their specific production system or might not be economically feasible. This chapter presents examples of state-of-the-art technologies that may be used in vegetable production today or in the near future. It further looks at the vegetable production trends in Ghana and the challenges associated with vegetable cultivation. In addition, it discusses the emerging technologies of vegetables and gives a description of advanced technologies in vegetable production in Ghana based on genetic improvement, Soil fertility improvement, irrigation as well as pest and diseases management practices. It also shows the characteristics of research and farmers' involvement in advanced technologies in vegetable production. Finally, it describes the prospects of vegetable production to food and nutrition security in Ghana.

#### **2. Vegetable production trends in Ghana**

In this section general vegetable production practices in Ghana are enumerated with emphasis on conventional practices, urban and peri-urban vegetable production. Although some emerging technologies such as cultivation in screen houses are becoming common in Ghana, these will be dealt with in a separate section and thus will not be the focus here.
