A look at Europe

Europeans have several generations of lead time over growers in North America that have allowed countries like the Netherlands and Spain to push their crops to the maximum using cutting edge technologies.

Many large U.S. and Canadian growers use this technology, but Europeans face severe production issues that force them to stay ahead of the competition.

“They’re really pushed because their input costs are extremely higher than ours,” says Rick Snyder, extension/research professor in the plant and soil sciences department at Mississippi State University. “From their property values to labor to taxes, everything is much more expensive, and so they’re really under pressure to get better yields.

“Here, we think land is expensive, but it’s relatively cheap. We think fuel is very expensive, but it’s cheap compared to Europe.”

Greenhouse Management spoke to U.S. university professors about these issues and how they affect North American growers.

Monoculture and marketing channels
Most Dutch growers produce a monoculture or just a few different crops. 

This allows them to invest in automation and provide environmental conditions specifically for the plant grown. In contrast, most U.S. growers produce dozens — if not hundreds — of different crops, so automation is typically not practical.

“This results in improved efficiencies for Dutch growers relative to that here in the United States,” says Erik Runkle, associate professor and floriculture extension specialist in the department of horticulture at Michigan State University.

Monoculture also leads to growers maximizing their marketing channels.

Most of the European and Canadian producers are large and look like warehouse greenhouses. As opposed to the diverse landscape in the United States, protected structures and greenhouses dot the country. Little family farms are common — 1,000 some estimate — with input costs so low (not using latest technology) they can make a profit. These farms aren’t driven to increase their outputs but still yield reasonably good product by selling produce locally.

“They’re in a whole different marketing channel where they have to maximize yield and pack trailers and ship to the largest grocery store chains and keep things moving to stay on top of it all,” Snyder says. “It’s a different world with the small growers.”

Management and costs in a competitive marketplace
For any producer, it’s all about cost and return.

If it costs more to produce even though there is a higher yield, it still comes down to how much it costs to produce, so U.S. producers want to ship a quality product.

“A North American grower could probably do better than any grower around because they manage better,” says Dan Cantliffe, international agricultural trade and policy center professor at the University of Florida.

“If they’re good managers they’ll out produce anybody. If you’re a sloppy manager or sloppy grower, then you’re done. That’s an advantage anyone in the agricultural business can get over their competition is by being a better manager.”

In the Netherlands, zero runoff is the national standard for greenhouse vegetable production, where almost all of the vegetables produced today in northern Europe are grown hydroponically.

“The latest is biofilters for cleaning the water and cleaning it at room temperature so they don’t have to use chemicals or heat sterilization and then recycle the water and nutrients over and over again,” says Harley Smith, research director for Hydrodynamics International, a manufacturer and master distributor of horticultural products for home and commercial applications in Lansing, Mich.

“They’re using half the fertilizer costs and 1/50th of the water because they capture and reuse it,” he says. “In the Netherlands, it’s illegal to use any fungicides on any food crop and they’ve found ways of using organic bio-stimulants to produce losses of 40 percent to powdery mildew in strawberry production and reduced it to zero with no fungicides.”

Pest management
Pests prove to be another issue and difference.

“In certain areas, such as Spain, they have a tremendous pest problem because of the large number and close proximity of small operations and it’s hard to be sure they’re all doing what they should to manage pest,” Cantliffe says.

As a result, some operations are looking at biological controls.

“The other thing that’s being done, and the Spanish are learning it especially, but the Dutch don’t use many chemicals, none if possible,” Cantliffe says. “They use biological control and they know how to maintain that biological control so they don’t have insect breakouts and other things that devastate a crop.

“They screen the greenhouse so they exclude a lot of major pests, especially white flies, and because they can vent houses but keep them closed, they can add carbon dioxide. Again, another expense, but it’s the only way to get up to the 100 kilograms per square meter number.”

Fuel and labor costs
Throughout the past five years, the increase in the price of fuel has rocked the industry.

Growers who look to produce through the winter need to burn some kind of fuel, and that expense has increased dramatically in recent years, especially in Europe.

“Their marketing system is again in some cases very sophisticated, but transportation takes a large chunk of the overall costs,” Cantliffe says. “The distances may not be that far in Europe, but your fuel costs are way higher, so transportation costs are high.”

Labor costs in the Netherlands are also much higher than they are here. But here, it’s always difficult to find skilled labor for greenhouse hydroponic production because most universities are not teaching greenhouse vegetable technology.

“You could find a few graduate students in the United States who are studying controlled environment agriculture at the University of Arizona, Cornell University, University of Florida, but they’re not the ones who are going to go into production,” Snyder says.

“There are the ones who are going to go into academia like I did, so I don’t think any schools in the United States are training students to come out and be greenhouse managers. There are jobs. I get several calls a year from huge ranges that are looking for greenhouse managers, growers and they pay very, very well. I, unfortunately, have to tell them there’s nobody I know of in the United States who’s trained in that area. It’s pretty sad.”

Mike Price is a freelance writer for Greenhouse Management.
 

Are you considering the European model of production? Are you producing this way? We want to hear from you. Contact Editor Kristy O’Hara at kohara@gie.net and let us know what you’re doing.

Want More?
Here are some online resources that provide insight into the North American and European greenhouse markets.

Greenhouse Tomatoes Change the Dynamics of the North American Fresh Tomato Industry by Roberta Cook and Linda Calvin
www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/ERR2

Competitiveness of the Spanish and Dutch Greenhouse Industries with the Florida Fresh Vegetable Industry by Daniel J. Cantliffe and John J. Vansickle
edis.ifas.ufl.edu/cv284

Significant Changes in the European Greenhouse Vegetable Industry by Ir. Gerard F.J. Boonekamp
www.canadiangreenhouseconference.com/talks/2002/2002-Boonekamp1.pdf