Top 10 Insights on the Vegetable Industry in 2018

By Carol Miller|January 31, 2018

The team at American Vegetable Grower^® keeps a close eye on how issues impact you. One way we do that is through our annual State of the Vegetable Industry Survey. This year, we’ve identified 10 key insights that you should know about.

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All the following insights are based on the responses we received from the industry.
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The first insight from American Vegetable Grower's State of the Vegetable Industry Survey delves into the industry's No. 1 challenge: Labor. We wanted to know what the main reasons making labor such a problem. Here is what hundreds of growers told us when we laid out several reasons for them.
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Farm Marketers Tend to Grow on Less than 100 Acres

A majority of growers — 70.1% — sell produce directly to consumers. But those growers, or farm marketers, tend to be from small farms.
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Farm marketers make the majority of their annual income from consumer sales.
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To find out which crops are seeing the most movement in 2018, we deducted the percent of growers decreasing or dropping a crop from the number increasing or adding the crop.
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53.7% of vegetable growers have some type of protected agriculture on their farms. Of those, 69.3% use a combination of greenhouse, high tunnel, and/or low tunnel.
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For the first time, we asked why growers are using greenhouses, high tunnels, or low tunnels. Here’s what you had to say.
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There are no surprises on the top two crops in each type of structure. Some of the other top crops may surprise you, though.
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Precision agriculture has filtered slowly to vegetable growers, but today, 48.5% of vegetable growers use precision agricultural tools. The percentages seen here are of from that group of growers.
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Growers reported consistent productions levels from 2016 to 2017 — save in one area: Those who reported production levels down by more than 10% dropped significantly.
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There was no significant change in the percentage of growers using biocontrols, which is holding steady at a little more than half of all growers. However, there is a shift in the types of biocontrols used.
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Each region of the U.S. dealt with pest issues in 2017. The Northeast and Midwest battled diseases. The Southeast, West, and Southwest fought off insects, while the Northwest had issues with weeds. The percentages here are the number of growers in each region naming the pest as a particular problem.
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Last year, we ask vegetable growers to write in which issues kept them up at night. This year, we compiled last year’s most common answers and included it in our survey.