Setting Milestones For The Future Of The Greenhouse Industry [Opinion]

Richard Jones

Calling attention to your own milestones can be tricky business. Like birthdays and wedding anniversaries, they’re fun to celebrate as a group, but in the end I suspect they’re always most important to the person whose milestone is being celebrated.

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Our staff spent a lot of time going back and forth as to how we should approach Greenhouse Grower’s 30th anniversary in 2013. We decided we didn’t want to focus everything on our own brand and accomplishments over the last three decades or generally spend a lot of time looking in the rearview mirror. We’ve done some of that with previous anniversaries. And really, poring over old issues of the magazine might be a fun way for me to pass a few hours down in our archives, but there are other things we can do that will be more helpful for you and your business.

Setting A Course For A Profitable Future

In the end, we decided 2013 should be a year of taking stock and setting direction.  Throughout the coming 12 months and 14 issues, we’re going to dive in and take a close look at where the greenhouse industry stands as of 2013. We will analyze the current state of the industry from a number of different perspectives, from the plants you grow, to the technology you use, to you — the grower — yourself. And in conjunction with our GROW program, we’ll be targeting where we need to be headed in the next 30 years and setting a path with new milestones to mark our progress and help you get there profitably.

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In this issue, our annual State Of The Industry Report offers a snapshot of how growers fared in 2012, what your plans and expectations are for the coming year and how the recent elections will impact your business.

Our new monthly GROW In Action feature shares some of the innovative ways we’re seeing growers put the principles of the GROW program to work in their own operations.

And this month’s cover story takes a look at The State Of The Grower in 2013 — how your job has evolved from plant expert to plant/technology/marketing/financial/customer relationship expert and what that means for the future of your greenhouse business.

We interviewed a lot of people to get perspective on how the role of the grower has changed over the last 30 years. Nobody we talked to said things are easier now than they were when they started in the business. But just about everyone said they are running their business better today.

We’re here to help you continue that trend.

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