USING THE RESULTS OF DEMONSTRATION HOLDINGS IN HORTICULTURE

Already in 1956 the Productivity Committee of Danish Horticulture (Produktivitätsudvalget for gartneri og frugtavl), a mixed group of scientists and practitioners, started in registering exactly the management economic events of seven well-managed danish private enterprises and rendering them accessible to the general public. These examination enterprises were termed demonstration holdings and were accessible to visitors on 50 days a year.

Prof. Dr. W. Busch, director of the institute of horticultural operating science and market studies of the Technical University Hannover, took up the danish example. In the scope of research orders since 1965 nearly 50 private enterprises in the Federal Republic of Germany have been analysed in every detail by the institute above mentioned with regard to the economic efficiency. These gardenings are called "demonstration holdings".

The research project of the province Niedersachsen entered on 1 January 1965 has the theme "studies for gaining operational data for the purpose of calculating most favourable working models in ornamental plant and vegetable holdings". As the theme expresses at this project the registration of the data, the theoretical further development of inquiry and calculation methods has precedence over the special advice duty. The latter however is placed in the foreground of two further research projects of analogous type in two other provinces.

The results ascertained in the holdings cannot and shall not represent exact standard figures for general considerations of profitableness and planning. By means of inspection of expense and proceeds structure, however, the right relations with regard to the management economics are to be shown and to be demonstrated.