ISHS Acta Horticulturae 299: Forum on Strategies for Horticultural Societies in the 1990's, XXIII IHC
RESEARCH PRIORITIES IN HORTICULTURE AND JOINT INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMS |
| Authors: | M. Faust, Cary A. Mitchell |
| Abstract:
Research is an investment in the future. Public support of research provides information to eventually solve the most immediate problems, but is not funded sufficiently to address all important problems simultaneously. To assure that the most pressing research needs are being addressed, research areas must be prioritized. Prioritizing horticultural research needs is particularly different because horticulture has many economic and political facets and deals with complex and diverse biological systems, many of which have not been well characterized genetically or biochemically. Furthermore, in the market-driven and politically sensitive field that horticulture is, the total research mission is split between reacting to current perceived needs and anticipating forthcoming problems. Accordingly, horticultural research priorities have tended not to be consistent year after year, and have been politically volatile. One can safely estimate that the world population will double from its present level of five billion people by the year 2030. The demand for horticultural crops and products including fruits, vegetables, and landscape and floral crops will increase at least proportionally. The demand for the diversity of horticultural products could never be satisfied locally. Because we are rapidly moving toward a global market economy, trade barriers will be largely removed, and subsidy of agricultural products will disappear. International competition will emerge for every important horticultural crop. In the future, economics will dictate that crops be produced where climate, labor, and transportation factors are most favorable. A high degree of specialization likely will develop. Competition also will be driven by technology and location. The inevitable rise of automation will result in fewer people being directly engaged in production agriculture. Society will continue to become environmentally sensitive, and this heightened sensitivity will impose severe restrictions on crop production practices. In the past, it was sufficient to prioritize horticultural research for an entire country, or even a local region within a given country. By the mid-1990's, it will be necessary to consider how global considerations will modify local or regional priorities. The arguments will be economic. For example, if the total cost of producing cut flowers in Columbia, South America, and transporting them to market in the United States is less than those costs in the USA, production of that commodity in the United States will not compete in its own markets and will disappear. It soon will be economic survival of the fittest and difficult decisions will have to be made. | |
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