OPENING ADDRESS

1. I have the honour to chair the 1^st afternoon session of this very relevant Congress that is also the 1^st session of the 3^d International Symposium on Production of Tomatoes for Processing. And it is an obligation but also a previlege to address some words on behalf of the ISHS's Working Group "Vegetable Production for Processing" to such a distinguished audience who is attending this session.
2. Our Working Group is ten years old and is now envolved in its 5^th symposium. We started in 1979 with an approach on tomatoes, by far the most important vegetable commodity for processing, and enlarged our activities around the world, being successively present in Western Europe, Africa, North America and Eastern Europe. We already started with the organisation of the next tomato symposium (the 4^th) that will be held in Argentine in 1991.

   Our classified membership list has now 122 members.

   In the opening session of the Congress welcome, greetings and thanks were duly given on behalf of AMITOM, by the Organising Committee, and of the International Socfety of Horticultural Sciences, by its Secretary-General. Anyway I am now obliged to repeat special thanks to AMITOM that allow us to insert this Symposium in the 1^st Worldwide Congress on Processing Tomatoes. And I must recognize that it was a pleasure to work with the Organising Committee of both Congress and Symposium, namely with Mr. Miklichansky and Mr. B. Biéche.

3. It is proper occasion to remember that a symposium at Avignon become a dream for some of us after 1980. We, ISHS, unsuccessfully tried to organize it because the R&ED effort in Vaucluse and the way it flows to the growers has been a model for many of us.

Therefore this symposium pays a public hommage to the scientific community who works for tomato production in this area, specially in SONITO, CPTC and INRA. And let me give special respects to this community in the persons of its senior scientist Dr. P. Pécaut and senior crop technologist Ing. X. Branthome.

A special mention must be done to the hidden associates to the organisation of this Symposium: the members of the Scientific Committee. They played an important role, like the choice of the invited papers (who came from the scientific communities of five important countries in tomatoes for processing) and the selection of posters and oral presentations.

The last but not the least I wish to express my appreciation to the President of AMITOM, my dear Portuguese colleague A. Braga da Cruz, who performed like a godfather in this marriage - that we want for ever - between scientists, growers and industry people.

Carlos M. Portas
Convenor
ISHS's Working Group "Vegetable
Production for Processing"