There is evidence that in countries where new seed industries have been set up, it is beneficial in the long term to sell seeds at a price level to cover all the production costs plus a profit for the vendor (Douglas, 1980). Generally, the more realistic the charge made for seeds produced by government agencies in the early stages of seed industry development, the sooner the private sector will wish to participate. There is, therefore, a better basis for a realistic seed price in the vegetable seed industry than perhaps in other areas of agriculture, especially in countries with a recently created demand for increased quantities of seeds. However, some government initiatives relating to legislative requirements (e.g. seed testing and certification schemes) will tend to increase the overall production costs. The components of seed price can be broadly classified into two groups, i.e. direct costs and indirect costs: direct costs: these include the factors that are directly related to the quantity of seeds marketed, such as costs of stock, field production, processing, containers and transportation; and indirect costs: these include activities relating to promotion such as main tenance of trial grounds, production and distribution of the catalogues.