GREENHOUSE OH

• Sponsoring Institution: National Institute of Food and Agriculture
• Project Status: COMPLETE
• Funding Source: OTHER GRANTS
• Reporting Frequency: Annual
• Accession No.: 0218776
• Grant No.: 2009-38897-19894
• Proposal No.: 2009-04018
• Project Start Date: Sep 1, 2009
• Project End Date: Aug 31, 2011
• Grant Year: 2009
• Program Code: [XH]- Greenhouse Nurseries, OH

Recipient Organization
OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
1680 MADISON AVENUE
WOOSTER,OH 44691

Performing Department
Branch Experiment Station

Non Technical Summary
The greenhouse industry has an important presence in the state of Ohio. The state ranks 7th in the nation in terms of the dollar value of nursery and grower crops sold. Lucas County is in the top 4% of counties nationwide. The northwest Ohio greenhouse industry is responsible for over 750 jobs and has a local economic impact in excess of $100 million. The industry is increasingly feeling intense competitive pressure from southern Ontario whose greenhouse industry is more technologically intensive, is able to take advantage of economies of scale, and is better organized. Additional pressures are placed on the northwest Ohio industry by high energy costs.

Animal Health Component

37%

Research Effort Categories

Basic

25%

Applied

37%

Developmental

38%

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
124	0680	2000	25%
206	2499	1050	37%
901	7410	3010	38%

Knowledge Area
206 - Basic Plant Biology; 901 - Program and Project Design, and Statistics; 124 - Urban Forestry;

Subject Of Investigation
0680 - Other products of the forest; 7410 - General technology; 2499 - Plant research, general;

Field Of Science
2000 - Chemistry; 3010 - Economics; 1050 - Developmental biology;

Keywords

northwest ohio

greenhouse nursery industry

greenhouse

greenhouse nursery

Goals / Objectives
This project's goal is to identify and implement strategies that can make the industry more economically competitive. Survey data from northwest Ohio indicate that the industry is becoming economically fragile. To help the growers become more competitive prompt and effective strategic action is necessary. The strategy being used is based upon the principles of cluster-based economic development. A cluster strategy focuses upon growers identifying and implementing collaborative solutions to common challenges facing their industry. Typically these challenges are of a scale and scope that they are beyond the capabilities of a single grower to address individually. Through collaboration, however, challenges can be addressed. An industry's ability to collaboratively address challenges is greatly enhanced when academic, local government and community partners are brought to the table. Continued development and implementation of a comprehensive marketing strategy for the cluster that will take advantage of the brand identity provided by the Maumee Valley Growers (MVG) label (Figure 1). Continued expansion of the northwest Ohio natural gas savings program. The program, that originated in northwest Ohio, and has since been expanded to other parts of the state and southeastern Michigan, will continue to be developed. Continued development of a group buying program for electricity that will be modeled after the highly successful natural gas buying program. This electricity program will initially focus on 19 northern Ohio counties. A successful cluster emphasizes collaboration between the businesses (greenhouses) in a cluster and community partners. While we have made some progress in developing relationships with community partners since 2005 we would like to increase our efforts to develop long-term, sustainable, collaborative relationships with community partners. Our initial assessment indicates that potential long-term, sustainable, collaborative relationships could be developed with a wide variety of northwest Ohio community partners. These include City of Toledo, Toledo Catholic Diocese, Toledo Choose Local, Toledo Botanical Gardens, Habitat for Humanity, Center for Innovative Food Technology, Toledo Farmers Market, and local garden clubs. The northwest Ohio greenhouse industry is characterized by a large number of family-owned greenhouse enterprises that often operate with small operating budgets and profit margins. These businesses must regularly review and modify their management strategies to achieve increased profits, efficiencies and overall business success. However, many greenhouse owners/managers have great horticultural expertise but limited formal business training and are interested in improving their basic understanding of business management skills. To facilitate learning and encourage improved business decision making, we are interested in developing educational workshops for the greenhouse industry that focus on learning and implementing employee management techniques as well business, marketing, and financial planning topics.

Project Methods
Key to ongoing development of the cluster is the process of developing and nurturing relationships between growers. In 2008 the position of Network Weaver was established to strengthen grower relationships. The Network Weaver, supported by the Cluster Manager or Cluster Champion, will continue in this capacity. Through the use of a technique called social network analysis (SNA) we identified numerous individuals who through their position in the greenhouse industry network have the potential to influence its future development. Some of these individuals have multiple contacts throughout the industry and are in a position to spread information quickly. Others are members of more than one otherwise-unconnected subset of the industry and are thus positioned to help create better linkages between growers who are divided by age, gender, or geography. Still others are connected to individuals, organizations, or other sources of new ideas outside the existing network. Together, these individuals have the potential to bring new ideas and practices into the northwest Ohio greenhouse industry and to disseminate them widely. The Network Weaver will lead the project team in building relationships with key individuals, including those who are already well-connected and those who have the potential to strengthen the group. The team will engage growers in small collaborative projects of mutual benefit and will work to bring successful small projects to scale by sharing information both formally, at grower meetings, and informally, through other project staff and industry members. Additionally, the Network Weaver will build and strengthen connections between industry members and community and groups (for example garden clubs and buy-local groups) which can contribute to industry success. By collecting consumer data at individual retail outlets and aggregating that information throughout the cluster region we will enhance our understanding of consumer product preferences and consumer decision making with regard to purchasing. By conducting focus groups with consumers, including gardeners and potential gardeners, knowledge of the specific preferences of northwest Ohio consumers will be gained. The Cluster Manager, Assistant Cluster Manager, Cluster Champion, and Network Weaver will all take responsibility for increasing collaboration between growers and community partners. All three individuals have well established relationships with appropriate community groups. They key is to leverage these relationships into collaborative initiatives and projects that simultaneously promote the missions and raise the profile of both the northwest Ohio greenhouse industry and community partners. Development and implementation of collaborative initiatives/projects will require considerable face-to-face time between the cluster staff and representatives of community organizations. Greek Hill is a small, but highly visible, plot of land in downtown Toledo. Since 2005 Maumee Valley Growers have partnered with the Toledo Catholic Diocese and the City of Toledo to plant a display of flowers on the land, accompanied by a sign that promoting Maumee Valley Growers.

Progress 09/01/09 to 08/31/11

Outputs
OUTPUTS: The project had a number outputs. The most significant of these was a conference on the topic of local food systems in old industrial regions that was held in Toledo, Ohio. The conference brought together both over 50 academics and practitioners from across the United States to share their knowledge, experience, and expertise with regard to developing and maintaining local food systems in old industrial regions. Topics covered at this conference included the structure and nature of supply chains/dominant and alternative, implications of local food systems for family, neighborhood, urban, and regional economies, food safety and security, individual and public health issues, environmental impact of local food systems, issues surrounding environmental justice, equity, access, and social justice issues, impact of local, national, and international policies on local food systems, and best practices and success stories. A major theoretical discovery of this conference was the appropriateness of the "wicked problems" framework as a conceptual prism through which the theme of local food systems could be viewed. The conference included presentations from a number of practitioners (e.g. food system planners) and non-geographers (from sociology, public health etc.). This mix of academics/practitioners and geographers/non-geographers made for a particularly rich series of discussion, debates, and deliberations. The knowledge gleaned from this conference is being used to develop the northwest Ohio local food system. In addition to the conference several surveys were conducted. This included a telephone survey of over 2,000 northwest Ohio residents. The objective of this survey was to threefold - to gauge public awareness of the Maumee Valley Grower brand, to better understand the demographics of the customers frequenting retail greenhouses (versus those frequenting the Big Box stores), and to understand the respective shopping motivations and preferences of retail and Big Box store customers. A survey of northwest Ohio growers was also conducted. The response rate for this survey was 95%. The primary objective of this survey was to assess the extent to which participation in the project had impacted growers in terms of their ability to attract new customers, their ability to serve customers better, the extent to which their interactions with their peers had increased, the extent to which their access to university researchers had changed, and level of optimism that they had with regard to the future of the industry in general and their business in particular. PARTICIPANTS: Neil Reid, Ph.D. (The University of Toledo) was responsible for coordinating the activities of the research team and will head up the Cluster Strategy Team. He will also serve on the Board of Directors of the Maumee Valley Growers Association and monitor the overall direction and health of this organization. Dr. Reid will also be responsible for identifying best practices with regards to cluster-based economic development and bringing these best practices to the attention of the northwest Ohio greenhouse cluster. Serenity Carr (The University of Toledo) served as Assistant Cluster Manager. She will work with and under the supervision of the Cluster Manager. Ms. Carr's primary responsibilities will be to work with the Cluster Manager and assist him in the day-to-day running of the cluster. Beth Fausey, Ph.D. (The Ohio State University) served as the Cluster Champion for Maumee Valley Growers. Her main duties will be to visit individual greenhouses and work with individual greenhouse owners to identify areas of potential collaboration. Dr. Fausey will also identify and facilitate collaborative educational opportunities for growers and will provide a key link to other local, regional, state, and national organizations (e.g. Toledo Area Flower and Vegetable Growers and Ohio Nursery and Landscape Association). Claudio Pasian, Ph.D. (The Ohio State University) worked on determing the effect of a controlled release fertilizer (Osmocote 15-9-12, 3-month longevity), a soybean based fertilizer (Daniels 10-4-3), a slow release fertilizer (Contec-DG 15-9-12, 5-months longevity) or a water soluble fertilizer (Peters Peat Lite 20-10-20) on growth and quality of three common bedding plants and to measure nutrients' concentration in the leachates from container grown plants fertilized with the fertilizers. Joe Perlaky (The University of Toledo) served as Cluster Manager for the northwest Ohio greenhouse cluster project. The Cluster Manager fulfills a multiplicity of functions. His primary role, however, was to facilitate the smooth functioning of the cluster and to make sure that the all the participants (MVG Board of Directors, Assistant Cluster Manager, Cluster Champion, growers, and any hired consultants) are working in unison toward the common goal of advancing the cluster. Gregg Rice (University of Toledo) will serve as Webmaster for the Maumee Valley Growers website (www.maumeevalleygrowers.com). Paula Ross (The University of Toledo) served as Network Weaver for the northwest Ohio greenhouse cluster project. As Network Weaver, Ms. Ross will take responsibility for building relationships with key individuals within the cluster and between cluster members and other individuals and groups in the community Luis Canas, Ph.D. (The Ohio State University/OARDC) was responsible for developing sustainable arthropod management programs based on the evaluation and improvement of current techniques. TARGET AUDIENCES: The main audience for this project were the 70+ greenhouses in northwest Ohio. The primary objective of the project was to educate the growers in best practices with regard to cluster-based economic development and to help them implement those practices which were most appropriate to their economic challenges and context. We also conducted a series of surveys that provided critical market information for the growers. The main venue for the dissemination of information from the surveys and best cluster practices was the monthly meetings of growers and associated stakeholders. The Cluster Manager and Champion also met with growers on a daily basis and worked side-by-side with them as they collaborated on projects that enhanced their economic competitiveness. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Not relevant to this project.

Impacts
This project focused on working with the local greenhouse industry build a viable industrial cluster that allows growers to enhance their economic competitiveness. A cluster-based approach is premised on the idea that by collaborating with each other (and with academic and community partners) the growers are able to solve problems and address challenges that they are not able to solve and address by themselves due to lack of resources (time, money, expertise). The growers have identified two major challenges that they feel can be addressed by a collaborative strategy. First, growers have developed a brand identity for the industry (Maumee Valley Growers) and have used that brand as the foundation for strategic collaborative marketing efforts. As a result of this the growers have attracted new customers. In a survey of growers 70.3% of retail growers say that the collaborative marketing has enabled them to attract new customers. The research team has also conducted research that has enabled growers to serve their customers better. A survey of over 2,000 residents in NW Ohio provided growers with a very precise demographic profile of their customer base and also information about their buying preferences. Second, in the area of utility costs the growers have partnered with a local energy consultant to attain economies of scale by making bulk purchases of both natural gas and electricity. Individual growers saved who participated between 8 and 15%. While the utility purchasing program was initially intended to be a northwest Ohio initiative it quickly expanded statewide when word of the program's success quickly spread and growers in other parts of the state asked if they could participate. Over one hundred growers throughout Ohio now participate in the program. In another unanticipated development the program expanded in neighboring southeastern Michigan. Third, the project has been successful at increasing the stock of social capital among the growers and between growers and academic and community partners. Social capital is "the stock of active connections among people: the trust, mutual understanding, and shared values and behaviors that bind the members of human networks and communities and make cooperative action possible". A healthy stock of social capital is the foundation for the longevity of any industrial cluster, so a great deal of our time and energy has been dedicated to enhancing the social capital stock. We believe that we have been successful. Using Social Network Analysis we found that between 2007 and 2009 there was an increase in the extent to which growers used each other as sources of advice and support and a decrease in the extent to which they used the cluster manager. This finding is supported by a grower survey in which showed that nearly 80% of growers had increased their level of interaction with their peers as a result of their participation in the project. Finally, our 2009 survey of growers showed that nearly 60% of growers were more optimistic about the future of their business as a result of their participation in this project. This compares with only 27% who had such optimism at the project was launch in 2004.

Publications

• No publications reported this period