NW Ohio greenhouse growers work together to compete

by William McNutt
Country Grower Midwest
March 2009

Dr. Claudio Paisan, OSU Horticulture and Crop Science and Dr. Neil Reid, Director of Urban affairs for the University of Toledo reported on Maumee Valley Growers Association's cooperative effort to reduce greenhouse energy costs.

Collaboration to Compete is a catchy title that even 25 years ago would not have been appropriate for the OSU Nursery Short Course, which took place in late January in conjunction with Ohio Nursery and Landscape Association's annual CENTS (Central Environmental Nursery Trade Show). Nursery enterprises in Ohio had traditionally been family owned small businesses that, while friendly with each other, did not too often work together. This has changed in recent years, as ever expanding, ever more costly agriculturally specialty growing has become focused on finding ways to cooperate in growing and marketing their products. Northwest Ohio nursery growers, anchored by a the metropolitan Toledo area, have seen industrial decline, tied to heavy industry dependent on auto manufacturing in nearby Detroit. Dr. Neil Reid, director of urban affairs at the University of Toledo, spoke at the ONLA meeting about the pioneering movement of area nursery operators to work in tandem for an overall purpose of stimulating their own and the area economy.

In the five-county area bordered by Michigan state line on the north end and Indiana to the west, there are about 60 greenhouse growers, with probably 85 percent of them paying ONLA dues each year. Beginning with fewer than 20 growers, they now have over 40 members cooperating in an effort to sustain and grow NW Ohio's greenhouse industry. A federal grant of $150,000 helped initiate the cooperative movement to integrate growing and marketing strategies. When it expires this year, funding will need to be raised from private sources and grower assessments.

Guided by a board made up of area growers who meet monthly with Dr. Reid and other UT faculty as resource personnel, the association seeks to develop improved means of solving common problems. Supporting new business opportunities to help grow the local economy are given major emphasis, to enable the northwest Ohio greenhouse and nursery network to be more than competitive. Dr. Reid emphasizes the need for what he terms "clustering" or concentrating the greenhouse industry in the five county area with other industries such as financial institutions, vocational schools, and government agencies, in order for cooperative efforts to grow the economy in a way to benefit each and every segment of that community. Group buying of natural gas for fuel usage has been one successful example of expense reduction for area greenhouse operators.

Marketing is an integral part of strategic planning, so that a changing customer base is attracted to locally grown product, while being assured that the agri-business enterprises supplying this product meet standards of greenness and sustainability. This trend is being noted by every agricultural research institution in the country; with under 50 generation of consumers becoming increasingly insistent on this. So are the supermarkets and farm markets from whom they buy food - and the wholesale purveyors who supply this group. This is why almost every specialty grower trade show educational session has substantial amounts of time devoted to such subjects - which will not become fewer in the near future.

One ONLA presentation by Purdue researcher Jennifer Dennis tied the subjects neatly together by titling her presentation: Where does sustainability fit into marketing strategy?

Most important in determining consumer attitudes is to profile that consumer, so that the marketer attempting to make the sale knows the feeling/attitudes of that presumed new-type buyer of consumer goods. Usually assumed to be female, or in a two person household and in control, our hypothetical customer, for whom every marketer is aiming, turns out to be college educated, 35 to 54 years of age, has children at home, with a household income of $75,000 or more to administer. He/she, or both, are green advocates and support environmental causes. Many of the younger ones acquired this attitude in their early education years, and there is little chance their children will not be doing the same. In short this movement is ongoing, as people live longer, they have become more concerned about their health, especially the effect on their lifestyle, including what they eat, has on their health .

Environmental concerns are not universal; many consumers who express concerns are not willing to pay extra for a product just because it is environmentally safe. Those who have no such concerns base their shopping on convenience and price, but are increasingly in the minority as incomes and educational levels have expanded in the U.S. The current economic downturn may place a halt on much of this activity, but it's not likely to go away. Concern for loss of acreage devoted to agriculture has not yet permeated the environmental movement, which ends to resist genetic engineering as means of expanding production in a food-short world. The soil from which all food comes is being lost due to urban development and poor farming methods that degrade much of the soil that is left.

Ohio State researcher Rattan Lal has suggested sustainability can be achieve through certain basic management practices - which must be understood by environmentally aware consumers. Among them are food security, availability of water, climate change, demands for energy, waste disposal, soil degradation and return to desert status, poverty, political instability and rapid population increase. If programs to address these needs by changing present management methods are not undertaken, problems will grow worse, and sustainability requirements to maintain agricultural production will be even less attainable.