ECONOMIC INDICATORS FOR APPLIED RESEARCH IN HORTICULTURE

What is the main purpose of applied research in horticulture? In our view it is the maintenance and growth of the real labour-income of the growers, i.e. of the income the growers receive for their manual labour plus profit. The "art" of directing research by economic criteria must take into account that the long-term interests of growers are to rest on the long-term interests of consumers.

Directing applied research by economic criteria is thinking much in advance about the economic consequences of research-activities. The surest way to look for economically satisfactory new research projects is reached by first indicating economically favourable fields and then inviting and encouraging new research projects to be created within those fields. The search for such economically favourable "fields" can take place more systematically by following a series of narrowing and dividing channels of possibilities, converging on the aim of increasing the growers' real incomes. The road to be followed in the system of channels (see chart) is strongly determined by altering the direction when successive clashes or possibilities arise with relevant external factors or with the specific economical-technical nature of the product. Directing applied research is only possible if a relation can be made with (a) a certain product or group of products and their economic prospects and for (b) certain categories of means of production and their prospects.