Articles
AN OVERVIEW OF THE NORTH AMERICAN GREENHOUSE INDUSTRY
The industry is diverse in crops and quality of crops grown and growers are extremely individualistic in marketing strategies.
Also, there are numerous differences in local climates and costs of resources.
Within one northern state like Ohio, one can find large areas of unheated-single-layer-polyethylene greenhouses for "overwintering" nursery crops as well as a unique 400 sq. m growth chamber with gas-engine-generators and HID lamps for growing lettuce.
All U.S. greenhouse growers are faced with uncontrolled and aggressive competition from imported vegetables and imported flowers throughout the year.
There are very few import barriers and the U.S. interstate highway and air transport systems are very efficient.
For example, over 95% of the winter vegetables such as tomatoes are field grown in Florida, Mexico, and California to be shipped to the populace Northeastern U.S. The field grown tomatoes are typically low priced and have good external (appearance) quality, but the internal quality will usually be inferior to the greenhouse tomato.
This greenhouse quality advantage has been highly profitable for small growers selling an identified tomato in local markets, but remains as a challenge to the large growers selling unidentified tomatoes in mass markets.