Canada: Ornamental product sales $2.3 billion in 2016
Sales of greenhouse, nursery and sod products
Total greenhouse flower and plant sales (including resales) totalled $1.5 billion in 2016. Ontario (52.5%), British Columbia (21.3%) and Quebec (10.3%) had the largest shares of total greenhouse flower and plant sales.
Indoor and outdoor potted plants made up the largest share of all flowers and plants produced and sold, accounting for 61.9% of total greenhouse floriculture sales. Ontario was responsible for close to half of potted plant values in 2016.
Several new outdoor potted plant categories were added to reporting this year, for example, potted herb plants (10.7 million pots), potted vegetable plants (7.2 million pots) and calibrachoas (2.6 million pots). Geraniums still accounted for the largest variety, with 16.5 million pots produced.
Cut flowers sales decreased 4.5% to $140 million, with Ontario accounting for nearly 70% of the sales in Canada.
Greenhouse vegetable sales totalled $1.3 billion in 2016, or about $175 million higher than the value of field grown vegetables (published in The Daily on February 1, 2017). Sales of greenhouse tomatoes rose 5.9% to $544.5 million, while sales of peppers decreased 1.5% to $419.7 million. Cucumbers had the largest percentage increase, with sales rising 7.4% to $334.2 million. Eggplants sales totalled $7.7 million in 2016.
Greenhouse, nursery and sod operating expenses
Total operating expenses for greenhouses rose 3.4% to $2.5 billion in 2016. Labour costs accounted for 29% of total operating expenses. The total number of greenhouse employees decreased 1.6% to 32,829, while payroll expenses increased 1.4% to $713.1 million. Payroll employees made an average of $21,723 in 2016.
Greenhouse crop expenses, electricity, and plant material purchases continued to increase, while total fuel expenses decreased.
Total nursery sales (including resales) decreased 11.6% from 2015 to $635.6 million in 2016. This was mainly due to the fact that operations which exclusively produce tree seedlings for reforestation were excluded from these data in 2016.
Greenhouse vegetable production, Canada, 1956 to 2016
Nursery operating expenses declined 8.0% to $559.4 million. Labour costs accounted for 36.2% of total operating expenses. The total number of nursery employees fell 11.3% to 11,663, and labour costs decreased 10.0% to $202.4 million. Average payroll increased 1.4% to $17,355 per employee.
In 2016, total sod sales (including resales) were down 5.0% to $147.4 million, while expenses decreased 5.4% to $115.0 million. Sod farm operations employed 1,585 people in 2016, down 7.1% from 2015. Average payroll reached $25,762 per employee in 2016.