an efficient allocation of resources. However, these flows across mar-
kets lengthen the distance between breeders and users in such a way that
the required information is not necessarily passing through (Figure 3.2).
Therefore, methods are required that provide the information about con-
sumer preferences necessary for priority setting in breeding. To be ap-
plicable, these methods should be time-saving and low in costs.
APPROACHES TO IDENTIFY CONSUMER PREFERENCES
FOR QUALITY CHARACTERISTICS
Informal Approaches
The approaches available for identifying consumer preferences for
quality characteristics could be grouped into informal and formal ap-
proaches. Among the informal approaches one could list the individual
experience of a breeder in selecting a crop. Breeders may collect infor-
mal information about the preferences in markets, households or pro-
cessing enterprises by making their own observations or by exchanging
knowledge with farmers, extension specialists and agricultural experts.
This information collected informally might result in the breeders’ per-
sonal selection index. Such informal approaches to identifying consumer
preferences may be sufficient as long as yield, i.e., quantity, is the most
important feature of a crop in determining gross revenue, while quality
characteristics, and thus price, are of minor importance. However, once
quality matters to the consumer, who is willing to pay a higher price for
the satisfaction of preferences, breeders will need to apply more objec-
tive, formal approaches to assessing these consumer preferences.
Formal Approaches
Formal approaches to identifying consumer preferences are all based
on the economic principles of the heterogeneity of goods and utility max-
imization of consumers, which were explained earlier in this chapter.
These approaches can be distinguished in two subgroups: (1) approaches
based on direct surveys of consumers and (2) the indirect approach of
hedonic price analysis, which is based on market observations of prod-
ucts with different qualities and their corresponding prices. Approaches
using direct consumer surveys include the conjoint analysis, factorial sur-
veys, multidimensional scaling and consumer panels. These methods may
also be combined. For a short comparative description see Table 3.1.