years’ time. This implies that the objectives of breeding programs have
to be based on assumptions about future developments of market de-
mand. With regard to quality, breeders need to take a view of what will
be consumers’ tastes and preferences for end use as well as for pro-
cessing in the coming years. However, preferences for quality traits vary
due to changes in income, market supply of food products, information
and technology. This often happens within a time scale that is far shorter
than that of plant breeding. Therefore, a constant adjustment of objec-
tives during the course of a breeding program is necessary. Breeders
have to adjust for those characters that are no longer preferred by users
and at the same time have to include new traits that markets demand.
The above considerations may be summarized by the following quo-
tation: “Breeding is the art of throwing away” (Becker, 1993). To de-
cide what can be thrown away, a constant flow of information about
consumer preferences is required in order to identify relevant quality
traits, to quantify their economic importance and to adjust breeding ob-
jectives if necessary. Furthermore, to be effective, the system of quality
assessment in a breeding program must be quick, cheap and economi-
cal in the use of genetic material. These features are essential because
plant breeders handle thousands of stocks each year, are often working
against time, and generally have only small amounts of material avail-
able for testing (Simmonds, 1979).
Constraints on Information
Selection and breeding for food production has been farmers’ preoc-
cupation ever since their ancestors, the hunters and gatherers, settled
down and began to cultivate land for crop production and animal hus-
bandry. In such self-sufficient farms, which produced their food for home
consumption, the activities of production processing and consumption
as well as breeding and selection for desired quality traits were carried
out by the members of one family in close interaction and breeding goals
were determined in line with immediate needs. Therefore, a constant
flow of information about preferred characters of crops was given.
With economic progress, commercialization and specialization re-
moved the activities of breeding, processing and consumption from
within to outside of the farm household. Breeding in specialized com-
panies, industrial processing and urban consumption instead of food pro-
duction for subsistence today offer more efficient solutions. The flow of
goods is distributed from producers to consumers via markets and the
corresponding counterflows of money provide price signals that allow
Constraints in Breeding for Quality 49