OPENING ADDRESSES

On behalf of the Hungarian Society of Agricultural Sciences I welcome you all at the First International Symposium on Vegetables for Processing. I am particularly pleased to welcome here Mr. L. Papócsi, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Food, Mr. van der Borg, Secretary General of the ISHS, Professor Portas, Chairman of ISHS Working Group on Vegetable Production for Processing, the members of the presidium and all our guests.

It is a great honour for us to have this international meeting in Hungary.

More than 200 participants from 30 countries have followed our invitation. The scientific meeting gives excellent opportunity to sum up recent results, to exchange personal opinions, to renew old acquaintances and to make new friendships. I hope you will also get acquainted with our people and country. In Hungary both vegetable production and processing can look back at a long history. Especially our host country, Bács-Kiskun, and our town Kecskemét have long horticultural and processing traditions. In Kecskemét there are several horticultural research and educational institutions as the Vegetable Crops Research Institute, one of the chief organizers of the Symposium and the Horticultural College, the host of the Symposium.

The meeting offers a rich program in 4 days. Besides 50 lectures and 60 posters institutions and farms can be visited. We should like to present you the Vegetable Crops Research Institute, the processing plant of the town, the cool storage houses of Békéscsaba and some horticultural cooperatives and state farms.

In the hope that the meeting will fully satisfy your expectations I open the First International Symposium on Vegetables for Processing.

I wish you an enjoyable stay and much success in your work and private life.

Gábor Soós
President of the
Hungarian Society of
Agricultural Sciences


His Excellency the Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Mr. President of the Hungarian Society for Agricultural Sciences Dear Members of the Organizing Committee Dear Collegues, Ladies and Gentlemen

1. That's an honour and a privilege to address some words on behalf of the ISHS's W.G. "Vegetables for processing" to such a distinguished audience who is attending the opening session of this symposium.

   When Dr. Norbert Hamar and myself met at Albufeira, Algarva/Portugal, in December 1985 and exchanged the first views about the prospectives of a scientific meeting on vegetables for processing at Kecskemét, I must confess that my mind was very far from this big meeting.

   I realize now that the idea of the Symposium was like a small seed that found a fine seed bed, germinated, grew and gave us a splendorous vegetable plant. More than this we can anticipate good processed products as fruit setting and ripening had been very successful, what is shown by the number and origin of participants, the interest and content of the oral presentation and the quality of the posters. In fact from the reading of the programme we conclude that are expected more than fifty oral presentations and than fifty posters.

   However at this occasion we must remember the vegetable growers that prepared the symposium and fertilized, and irrigated the plant and controlled the weeds. They have to be congratulated for the intensive, continuous and hard work to perform all the tasks that make successful this scientific conference.

   I thank all the organizations and individuals involved. However let me express some special words from our Working Group to: the Hungarian Society of the Agricultural Sciences in the person of his President, Prof. Gabor Soós; the Vegetable Crops Research Institute of Kecskemét, in the person of his Director Prof. Balázs; the Hungarian Organizing Committee, with their Chairman, Dr. Horváth, Vice-Chairman, Dr. Norbert Hamar, and Secretary Dr. Györffy; and the International Scientific Committee with their members Dr. Balázs, Dr. Hamar, Dr. Soós and Dr. Török (Hungary), Dr. Y. Dumas (France), Dr. Germing (Netherlands), Dr. Kelly (USA), Dr. J. Skierkowski (Poland) and myself.

2. After this introductory words let me say a few more about the heart of the matter- vegetables for processing - that is the creative subject that forms the background of this meeting.

   In the present decade vegetables for processing already represented near one fourth of total vegetable production in volume and roughly the same in value (even including high valued commodities like edible fungi); this percentage doubled in the last twenty years. Even some vegetables disappeared from the fresh market statistics, as happened with green peas in USA, or canning represent more than ninety percent of the commodity's utilization like with sweet corn.

   But more than all this and as Dr. J. Polly, the President of the France's INRA wants to emphasize, if the agricultural sector doesn't include processing and the pathway till the consumer it looses most part of its added value.

   We can make our outlook to the last volume of agricultural statistics of a big and developed country: USA. If we consider agriculture as production of raw materials for food and clock we will find around 8 % of GNP; but if we would include food till the consumer its value will go up to 20 %, that means more than steel industry or all the chemical goods!

   It must still be pointed out that in many countries there is a surplus of food and a quick decrease of its price; however this is not linked with a deflation in consumer prices. In orther words, added value had been increasing in the industrial and trade sections of the food chain.

   Therefore the establishment of our Working Group inside the ISHS's Section of Vegetable seemed to be the right decision in the proper time as the scientific approach in order to study vegetables for processing is rather specific both in technology and specialities. And I am very happy that some of the founders are with us today, f.i. Prof. D. Fritz, M. H. Van der Borg, Prof. L. Ottosson.

   Our Working Group is now seven years old and is in the 4th symposium. We started with a tentative approach on tomatoes, by far the most important vegetable commodity for processing, and we are enlarging our activities around the world (Western Europe, North America, Eastern Europe and Africa). We hope the next symposium will be held in India.

   Our classified membership list has now more than 120 members.

3. My last words are for you, ladies and gentlemen, participants and accompanying persons. I hope you enjoy our symposium. You share an important part of its success that strongly depends on your contribution: interested comments in the debates, a friendly atmosphere in the breaks and social events, a disciplinate participation in the excursions, etc.

   After reading attentively the well prepared programme, I am sure you agree with me that our Hungarian fellows deserve a warm participation from all of us.

Thank you

Carlos M. Portas
Chairman
ISHS's Working Group Production
of Vegetables for Processing