PREFACE

These two volumes contains the material of 112 lectures and posters given by more than 190 authors.

This prominent international professional assembly was characterized by the wide variety of the themes presented. Methods of storage concerning over 30 plant species were covered at the symposium. Lectures were delivered on the following subjects: fruits of the temperate zone: apples, pears, plums, quinces, sour-cherries, peaches, apricots, cherries, nectarines, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, rubus and rose-hips; tropical fruits: citrus fruits, mandarins, bananas, mangoes, persimmons, olives, grapefruit, avocados and figs; vegetables: beans, eggplants, tomatoes, cumin, peppers, fennel, squash, asparagus, sweet potatoes, onions, lettuce; at least 5 kinds of grape, several kinds of cut flowers, tulip-bulbs, flower bulbs and finally, mushrooms.

The lectures included the following main themes:

Methods of storage (storing in controlled atmosphere, ULO-technology, packing in modified atmosphere, etc); - Diseases during storage and protection against them; - Loss of water during storage and other losses; - The effect of growing factors on the storage quality (species, varieties, nutritive material, time of harvest, cultivation methods etc); - Treatments before storage; - The change in physiological factors and internal contents and their effect on storage qualities; - The components of quality in the case of horticultural products and the determination of their quantity; - The most important current and future problems of research in storage; - The technological parameters of storage (temperature, humidity content, air-composition etc); - Technical and mechanical aspects of storage; - Organization, packaging, etc. The economics of storage (macro and micro policy effects, marketing etc).

The participants of the Conference were greeted by Professor Dr. Pál Sass, the Chairman of the Organizing Committee and Dr. h.c. Marcel Herregods, the Chairman of the Commission Postharvest Biology and Technology of ISHS.

On behalf of the town administration István Ivanics, deputy mayor Kecskemét's mayor greeted the guests wholeheartedly.

The welcoming address was given by Dr. János Szabó, the Minister of Agriculture of Hungary.

During the conference under the direction of Professor dr. h.c. Pál Tomcsányi a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, a business meeting took place whose purpose was to introduce well-known, developed technology to the contries of Central and Eastern Europe. At the meeting the Chairman of Copa-Cogeca, L. Gijsbert, gave a lecture on "Actual problems in the trade of horticultural products between Eastern and Western Europe". After the lecture representatives of Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Rumania, Russia, Ukraine and Hungary spoke about the specific problems in each country, such as privatization, investments, etc.

During the Symposium the participants could see an international horticultural exhibition of the latest achievements in storage technology.

Besides the lectures, talks and exhibitions a study-trip to Budapest took place, where the participants could visit the Museum of Agriculture, the University of Horticulture and Food Industry, the cool-storage facilities in Budaörs and the wholesale market.

In his closing remarks Dr. h.c. M. Herregods voiced the opinion of the participants of the Conference in saying that the Symposium had proved to be successful and well-organized.


THE OPENING OF THE MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I have the honour to welcome the participants of Postharvest '93 International Symposium. It is really a great honour for Hungary to host the specialists who deal with this topic in the different fields of research, education or practice coming from all over the world. I am aware the conference will be very useful not only from the point of view of research but also from the point of view of practice. I hope and I also expect that Hungary's changing agriculture will gain important benefits from it, too.

Let say a few words about Hungarian agriculture. During the thousand-year history of our nation we have been interwoven with agriculture, and with agricultural growing. It is our fundamental basis that 70 % of the country's territory can be cultivated. Consequently, the size of the agrarian population is relatively large compared to international rates (17 %) and agricultural work gave and gives subsistence living to a significant number of people.

From the middle of the last century there has been a significant development in agriculture. At that time as well as during the last few years we made use of foreign experience. We are also making efforts to do this and this conference is one of these efforts.

I do not really want to overload you with details but I think it is still necessary to mention some.

18 % of Hungary's GDP comes from agriculture. 25 % of Hungary's exports comes from agricultural products, which expresses the role of our agriculture even more vividly. As you will soon know later or you may already know, our country has not got any seas, we do not really have a lot of forests, we are deficient in ores and mineral resources but, as I have already told you, our agriculture is really significant.

Within the cultivation of plants, horticulture obtained its status by its products of high biological and aesthetic value, 6 % (400.000 ha) of cultivated agricultural land is used for horticultural growing and it gives 20 % of the crop value within agriculture. It shows the outstanding utilizing capacities of horticulture which are 4–5 times greater than cultivation of plants in general and 2.5–3 times greater than agriculture in general.

The production of horticultural produce is one that needs a lot of manual work and even in well mechanized branches it needs 5–7 times more manual work than in cultivation of arable crops. The level of expenses is high and so is its need for investment. The number of horticultural species is really large and the number of varieties is several times more than the number of species. Consequently, proper expert knowledge and specialization are both very important.

There are very different ecological conditions for the successful growing of species and varieties. A significant proportion of the products supports a remarkable value of the brand due to the location of growing. The status of Hungarian agriculture is due to the favourable coincidence of professional know-how, growing traditions and ecological fundamentals.

However the products become goods only after harvest. That is why the market position of vegetables and fruits depends significantly on sound demand and marketability. But unfortunately almost all the agricultural products are perishable that is why it is only good storage facilities that can improve the market positions.

The risk involved in marketing can only be decreased by an up-to-date network of storage and good marketing facilities, as well as by a conscious regulation of growing, by producing high quality goods adequate for the intended use of as well as by professional marketing activity in the case of fresh and processed produce.

Consequently, growing is strongly connected to the operations that follow the harvest. We can not talk about commodity production without building up all the operations after harvest. Of course, it is also possible to market the products just after harvest, but it is only possible in small quantities. It is obvious that marketing positions are uncertain without a complex postharvest network. All these justify the importance of postharvest in vegetable- and fruit-growing.

Ladies and Gentlemen, during the last few years a change of regime has taken place in Hungary. The structure of ownership and operation in the economy have undergone great changes. The dominance of state farms and co-operatives has been succeeded by medium-sized farms and small-holdings based on private ownership or maybe their co-operatives. So that you can understand what "large-scale" means in our terms, I will tell you what the average sizes of the two dominant forms, the co-operatives and state farms, were like. During the last four decades they were formed so that the average size of the 1300 co-operatives was 4000 ha and that of the 125 state farms exceeded 8000 ha. In about 70–80 of them vegetable- and fruit-growing occupied 400–500 ha, and, in some of them this figure exceeded 1000 ha. Over and above this type of large-scale growing the number of growers, running a farm of about 1 ha, has always been significant. During the last few years these growers have also collaborated with the large-scale enterprises as the forms of acquisition of their income were linked.

In this sense some of our tasks seem to be easy now. The reality is more complicated than that. The number of private growers has permanently increased due to the re-organization of large-scale enterprises and the consequences of privatization. New trading-, turnover-, marketing-, advertising-, and other technologies are needed for the newly formed private farms. We are interested in agrarian production, within agriculture in vegetable- and fruit- growing. We would like to retain and increase the marketability of our products not only in the domestic market but also for export activity. Consequently, it is going to be important to maintain the good quality of our products.

Vegetable- and fruit-growing belong to specialisms that utilize the comparative advantages of our country to the greatest efficiency within our agriculture. Do not think I would just like to flatter you, but I have to say that there is hardly any other task in our agricultural politics that would be more important than the improvement of our postharvest activities. It is not only demanded by the domestic market but our western and eastern trading partners also demand it to an even greater extent. We are aware of the fact that our goods have to compete on the overstocked European and world markets. But we want to do more than fill these tiny gaps in the market. That is why we need persistent marketing work, discovering markets and forming the correct partnerships, but first of all we need marketable goods. I hope that Hungarian agriculture will benefit from the conference by gaining much new information and useful knowledge and experience on how to transform Hungarian horticulture.

We would like to benefit from the more than one hundred lectures of the conference. We would like to make good use of the results of personal ex-changes of experience, as well as to learn from the lessons of the poster exhibition attached to the symposium.

I can guarantee you that the Government of the Hungarian Republic and the Ministry of Agriculture are paying close attention to the work of the symposium.

Finally let me express my private thanks to all those who have taken part in the organization and arrangement of the symposium.

I wish you successful and useful symposium.

Have a nice time in Hungary!