However, the following considerations indicate that a continuous flow
of information on consumer preferences may help to increase the effi-
ciency of breeding programs. As indicated in the basic principles de-
scribed in this chapter, consumer demand for quality characteristics may
change due to variations in income, preferences, technologies and prod-
uct supply. Consumers in high-income countries attach relatively low
importance to the nutritional value of food while other utilities such as
healthiness and aesthetic value are considered to be more important.
There is a general trend of demanding quality rather than quantity in
food. Breeding programs should respond to these trends in order to avoid
costs due to misconceptions in priority setting. However, as stated ear-
lier, breeding for quality is not possible without concretely defining the
quality traits of a product that have an impact on consumers’ utility.
A changing demand for quality provoked by changes in technology
has been demonstrated for cotton in the U.S. Based on the hedonic price
analysis a demand function for each relevant quality characteristic was
derived. It could be shown that changes in spinning technologies have
a significant impact on the demand for fiber length (Bowman and
Ethridge, 1992).
Changing trends of consumer preferences for fresh products can be
observed in markets of many high-income countries. For example, dur-
ing the last 10 years the demand for tastiness and healthiness of fresh
products in Germany has increased considerably. Products that are
known to be cultivated under intensive use of fertilizer and pesticides
are increasingly avoided. Moreover, consumers clearly express their
preferences for vegetables and fruits having a natural touch and full fla-
vor. Jordan et al. (1985, 1987) showed that consumer preferences for
various qualities of tomatoes and peaches in wholesale and retail mar-
kets are significantly determined by the characters’ firmness, damage
and color.
Markets are responding to these preferences by offering a broad range
of different qualities of fruits and vegetables as well as an increasing
share of bioproducts. Hence, for instance, it would be useful for eco-
logically producing farmers in Europe to have varieties that may not be
top yielding but that have a solid set of resistance against major dis-
eases, so that the cost of producing ecologically sound (i.e., chemically
untreated) fruits and vegetables can be reduced.
Hedonic price analysis is an appropriate tool for early detection of
changes in demand. By employing prices and supplied quantities of rel-
evant quality traits as the information base, it directly focuses on the
Conclusions 59