ECONOMIC AND MARKETING ISSUES FROM A GROWER’S PERSPECTIVE

Often overlooked in the agricultural sector are agricultural products that enhance the quality of life either through their aesthetic properties or environmental enhancing properties. The U.S. leads the world in the production and marketing of these floriculture and nursery crops also known as the “green” industry. Floriculture includes: bedding/garden plants, cut cultivated greens, cut flowers, flowering potted plants, foliage plants, floriculture propagative material. Flowering potted plants and foliage plants represent only items intended for indoor or patio use. Nursery includes: broadleaf evergreens, coniferous evergreens, deciduous shade trees, deciduous flowering trees, deciduous shrubs and other ornamentals, fruit and nut plants, Christmas trees (cut and to be cut), transplants for commercial truck crop production, and propagation material (except transplants for commercial crop production). The green industry is the fastest growing sector of U.S. agriculture, representing 11 percent of gross cash farm crop receipts in 1997 (USDA, 1999). In spite of a slow economy, the wholesale value of U.S. expenditures for floriculture and nursery crops still managed to grow, but at less than 1%, to $14.2 billion in 2001. Grower cash receipts from sales of floricultural and nursery crops (also called the green industry) were $13.3. While the U.S. exports some floriculture and nursery crops, net imports accounted for slightly less than one billion dollars