As one of the key problem for the robotic harvesting, the real-time recognition and localization of fruits and vegetables in field have drawn wide attention. First, the development of common hardware and algorithms for the recognition of fruits and vegetables was reviewed. For the image segmentation of fruits and vegetables, researches on image preprocessing, color feature selecting, image segmentation designing and image post processing were summarized and analyzed. For the recognition of fruits and vegetables, researches on common algorithms, recognition algorithms for clustered objects and for occluded objects were reviewed. Second, active and passive range finder methods which have been used commonly in the localization of fruits and vegetables were analyzed and compared. Moreover, stereo matching methods used in the passive range finder methods for fruits and vegetables were analyzed and compared, too. Finally, existing problems in researches on the recognition and localization for fruits and vegetables in field were analyzed, and research prospects were also presented.