Some Data on Horticulture and Horticultural Research in the Netherlands

1. Importance of horticultural crops

Fruit: apple, pear, strawberry. A development to agricultural production of blackberries for processing;

Vegetables: (in the open): all different kinds of products for agricultural production;  (under glass): tomato, cucumber kberries for processing;

Vegetables: (in the open): all different kinds of products for agricultural production;  (under glass): tomato, cucumber and sweet pepper (trends to a large product differentiation especially in tomato and sweet pepper);

Ornamentals: an extraordinary and still growing differentiation in products. large products are roses, chrysanthemums, various pot plants, bulbs and ornamental trees.
 
1.4. Importance of exports
The export of vegetables, fruit and ornamentals is important. More than 80 % of the horticultural products is exported. Exports go to all countries of the EU, but mainly to Germany, France and the United Kingdom. Some exports are going to the USA and Japan. For example there is a rather important export of bulbs to Japan.

About 10 % of exports is going to countries outside of the EU, USA and Japan.
 

2. Research funding

(estimations)

total		public		private		TOTAL
agriculture		480		300		780		300		780
horticulture		51		39		90
horticulture		guilders		public %		private %
total		90		57		43

2.2. How to look at the data presented?
It was shown above, that governemental policy for agricultural research is changing rapidly. The "market" for research institues will become very competis shown above, that governemental policy for agricultural research is changing rapidly. The "market" for research institues will become very competitive. In fact, in this market, knowledge is the only asset of the institutes and they will be extremely eager to make value of their own core competence. It is expected that research institutes will compete for "orders" of government and private organisations by competitive bids. For research institutes is will become essential to specialize and to develop unique competences.

This means, that a shift to more basic research can be expected instead of research that is bounded to certain crops. In fact this process is already going on, as for example it is hardly possible to get information about horticultural research (as was questioned). More easily data can be get on certain main topics (like plant breeding or post harvest). The Dutch data presented therefore can be only considered as rough estimations. This can be explained as follows:

The data for applied research stations were easy to get. That is because there field of research is completely bounded towards a certain horticultural or agricultural crop as fruits, vegetables, ornamentals agriculture. But this kind of information is much more difficult to get from the Wageningen institutes. The data presented are all concerning research programmes that are nearly exclusively bound to a horticultural crop. Most of the research at institutes however is not bound to crops, but to specific knowledge fields as plant protection, plant breedge fields as plant protection, plant breeding, plant nutrition, production ecology, safety of agricultural products, information and communication technology, biotechnology, quality, handling and storage of agricultural products, economy, etc.

Only at the level of concrete projects a relation to a certain crop can be found. But it was difficult to get this kind of information. Also, this information is hardly of any value because the researchers are primarily focussed to their specialism (as plant breeding or plant protection etc) and may switch to other diseases and crops quickly. In the near future they swift even more quickly than in the past.

It may be clear that this information on crop bounded information is not available from the Wageningen university or elsewhere. All universities are concentrated to basic sciences. Of course, they may use sometimes horticultural crops as an example, but they may switch easy to other model organisms. Thus the data for research funding from the government are public, and we know that rougly 20 % of the budget of the Wageningen university is from private sources. In this way the research funding was estimated.

For horticulture, no data from universities were obtained and not added to the data presented. To show the dramatic changes in the world of the Wageningen university is that about 15 years ago there were about 15 professors (full or part time) related to agricultural and hortor part time) related to agricultural and horticultural crops, but nowadays none! The professor on production ecology should cover his own field of model studies and all the crop related sciences as well!
 

3. Trends

So far government will finance the research infrastructure, but under strict conditions.

Recently a strategy has been accepted by the government to restructure the whole agricultural research community. This means that the Wageningen University, the Wageningen institutes and the applied research stations (spread over the country) will be concentrated in one organisation: the KCW (Knowledge Center Wageningen). The very practical demonstration units (experimental gardens) which are spread over the country in relevant areas, will become completely under the responsibility of the growers organisations. Even a part of the applied research station themselves (roughly 50%) will not be a part of the KCW but will become under the responsibility of the growers organisations. The future of the experimental gardens and parts of the research stations is uncertans and parts of the research stations is uncertain so far.

The Wageningen institutes are up till now part of the ministry of agriculture, but this will change within a year. The research institutes together should form an independent organisation, that is responsible for its own budget. The government changes from being an owner to a client. The new organisation should get a larger part of its budget from other sources. This new organisation will become a part of the newly formed KCW.

It is expected that the formation of this new organisation will lead to a substantial decrease in numbers of researchers in the coming years. Some areas will decrease substantially (as is expected for crop related departments or institutes), whereas others will grow (plant breeding, post harvest and chain, market and information related groups). The new organisation will become extremely eager to get funds from national and even international private sources and for example the research programmes of the EU. It is expected that in the near future a network of strategic research alliances will be formed in Europe.

3.2. In the production and international trade
The fruit sector is in troubles. It is expected that its acreage will decrease further.

The vegetable sector has its ups and downs. The acreage of vegetables under glass is stable after a decrease in the last five years. It has to make the change to a market driven organisas to make the change to a market driven organisation. The auctions have merged and have now made a new market organisation "The Greenery".

The ornamental sector is very strong and now the most important horticultural sector. The production of ornamentals (flowers, potplants, ornamental trees and bulbs) is still growing and as well as the international trade. Is many parts this sector dominates the European and world market and trade.

3.3. In research topics in horticulture

Main trends are:

sustainable production systems;

production ecology (including biological and ecological production; and plant protection as well);

plant nutrition in relation to ecology and preventing of wastes;

sustainable energy use in glass house crops;

mechatronica and other new computer technology (hard and software) in industrial production systems; designing of new flexibel production systems.

biotechnology (plant breeding for specific qualities and product differentiation, resistance for pests and diseases);

safety of products for consumers;

post harvest topics;

competitiveness on international markets: markets, logistics, distribution; production on demand; information systems on demand and production; management on the producers level and on the level of international trade.
 

4. Publications

4. Publications

fruit: 433

vegetables: 668 (of which for crops under glass 210)

ornamentals: 657 (including bulbs and ornamental trees)

No survey was made of scientific papers related to horticultural crops.
 

5. Partnerships