Ontario's greenhouse growers size up new markets

Monday, January 7, 2013

by SUSAN MANN

The Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers has hired the George Morris Centre, an agricultural industry think tank based in Guelph, to assess opportunities for farmers to export their greenhouse vegetables to the Far East and Southeast Asia.

George Gilvesy, greenhouse growers’ general manager, says the organization is trying to expand the market horizons for its members. Most of Ontario’s greenhouse cucumber, pepper and tomato production is sold in the domestic market and in the United States.

“First we’re scoping it (the regions) out as a new market,” he explains. The countries they’re looking at include Japan, China (including Hong Kong), Singapore, Malaysia, Korea and Taiwan.

Gilvesy says the study will look at if there are barriers to entering those markets, the market size and if growers can make money exporting to the regions. “At the end of the day you have to make money doing it,” he notes.

Greenhouse growers received $10,000 from the federal government for the study, which costs about $24,000, he says, noting they applied for the federal government money through the Canadian Horticultural Council.

Gilvesy says during a presentation at the New York Produce Show before Christmas he learned the grocery/retail structure in the Far East and Southeast Asia is changing with a burgeoning middle class now shopping more in North American-style grocery stores rather than at local produce vendors.

“The market is changing so quickly over there that we have to understand what the transformation means and how easy it is to do business,” he notes.

The study is slated to be completed March 31 and the greenhouse vegetable growers will assess it to see if more information is needed. If not, the organization will release it to any interested members.

Gilvesy says Canada’s involvement in the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade talks did not prompt the study. (Other countries involved in the talks are: Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam). But “we’re watching those negotiations closely.” If the agreement is going to have an impact either positively or negatively, that will be identified in the greenhouse growers’ study, he says. BF