Maumee Valley Growers Cluster Project

Purpose

The purpose of this project is to assess the competitive challenges facing northwest Ohio's greenhouse nursery industry, focusing on a six-county area: Lucas, Wood, Fulton, Ottawa, Sandusky, and Erie counties.
The project is being funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the research team comprises faculty and staff from The University of Toledo, Bowling Green State University, Ohio State University, and Indiana State University. The research team acknowledges the assistance of Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur in securing the funds for this project.

Since the project's inception in 2003 the research team has been helping northwest Ohio's greenhouse industry identify ways in which it can retain its competitive edge in an increasingly hostile competitive environment. Much of these efforts have focused around organizing northwest Ohio's greenhouse industry as an industrial cluster. The objective of an industrial cluster is to encourage individual growers to come together and engage in collaborative problem solving. As a result of these efforts the Northwest Ohio greenhouse growers have now started to work together under the umbrella of the Maumee Valley Growers.

Since 2003 the research team has made over 50 presentations at regional, national, and international conferences and has produced 17 publications, including 7 refereed journal articles, 5 book chapters, 3 conference proceeding, and 2 trade journals.

What Are Clusters?

Clusters are geographic concentrations of interconnected companies and institutions in a particular field. Clusters encompass an array of linked industries and other entities important to competition (Porter 1998).
Clusters extend downstream to customers and laterally to manufacturers of complementary products and to companies in industries related by skills, technologies, or common inputs.
Clusters include governmental and other institutions - such as universities, think tanks, vocational training providers, and trade associations - that provide specialized training, education, information, research, and technical support (Porter 1998).
Geographically concentrated networks and value chains of suppliers and/or knowledge institutes with the aim of developing innovations. (Hospers and Beugelsdikj, 2002)
View the presentation Economic Clusters by Michael C. Carroll & Neil Reid.
The Maumee Valley Growers is registered with The Competitiveness Institute (TCI). TCI is a not-for-profit alliance of cluster practitioners. TCI's mission is to improve living standards and the local competitiveness of regions throughout the world, by fostering cluster-based development initiatives. TCI's membership base is more than 500 leading practitioners from all levels of governments, Academia and from the private sector, coming from more than 50 countries. By sharing knowledge and experience members gain access to leading insights and expertise and the most recent global developments in competitiveness theory.

Conference Presentations & Materials

Conference presentations and posters by Northwest Ohio Greenhouse Industry Cluster Project staff:

Presentations
Posters

Publications

The following is a list of publications resulting from the Northwest Ohio Greenhouse Industry Cluster Project:
Reid, Neil. 2009. Maumee Valley Growers – Choosing the very best. Excellence, January/February, 20-23.
Gatrell, Jay D., Neil Reid, Thomas Steiger, Bruce W. Smith, and Michael C. Carroll. 2009. Value-chains: Identity, tradition, and Ohio’s flori(culture) industry. Applied Geography, 29: 346-357.
Reid, Neil, Bruce W. Smith, Jay D. Gatrell, and Michael C. Carroll. 2008. Importing change: Canadian competition and the US floriculture industry. The Industrial Geographer. 6(1): 3-19.
Reid, Neil, Bruce W. Smith, and Michael C. Carroll. 2008. Cluster regions: A social network perspective. Economic Development Quarterly, 22(4): 345-352.
Reid, Neil and Michael C. Carroll. 2008. Creating trust through branding: the case of northwest Ohio’s greenhouse cluster. In Stringer, C. and R. LeHeron (eds.). Agri-food Commodity Chains and Globalizing Networks, London: Ashgate, 175-188.
Reid Neil, Michael C. Carroll, and Bruce W. Smith. 2007. Critical steps in the cluster building process. 2007. Economic Development Journal, 6(4), 44-52.
Smith, Bruce W., Michael C. Carroll, and Neil Reid. 2007. Potential cluster regions: the case of the U.S. floriculture industry. Papers of the Applied Geography Conferences, 30: 59-66.
Reid, Neil and Michael C. Carroll. 2006. Collaborating to compete: The case of the northwest Ohio greenhouse industry. In J.D. Gatrell and N. Reid (eds.), Enterprising Worlds: A Geographic Perspective on Economics, Environments, and Ethics, Springer: Dordrecht, 41-56.
LaFary, Eric, Jay D. Gatrell, Neil Reid, and Peter S. Lindquist. 2006. Specialized agriculture: Local and global competitors in Ohio’s greenhouse industry. In J.D. Gatrell and N. Reid (eds.), Enterprising Worlds: A Geographic Perspective on Economics, Environments, and Ethics, Springer: Dordrecht, 57-70.
Reid, Neil and Michael C. Carroll. 2006. Structuring a successful greenhouse cluster in northwest Ohio. Economic Development Journal, 5(4): 42-49.
Reid, Neil and Michael C. Carroll. 2006. Growing the greenhouse industry. Greenhouse Product News, 16(8), 56-59.
Reid, Neil and Michael C. Carroll. 2005. Using cluster-based economic development to enhance the economic competitiveness of northwest Ohio’s greenhouse nursery industry. Papers and Proceedings of Applied Geography Conferences, 28, 309-319.
For more information about the project or to request a copy of any of the above publications please contact Dr. Neil Reid at 419-530-3593 or neil.reid@utoledo.edu.

Surveys

Ohio USDA Survey Results (2004/2005)

A sample of 500 potential respondents was extracted from OFA - an association of floriculture professional members' mailing list. Respondents received a nominal stipend of twenty-dollars for participation. Questions were developed to unpack the current practices and to reveal the status of Ohio's greenhouses. The survey, conducted during the fall/winter of 2004/2005, was comprised of 59 questions. OFA and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) were instrumental in developing widespread interest in the study. In particular, OFA utilized its mailing list to encourage participation from members. The Toledo Botanical Gardens mailed 500 copies of the survey to respondents. The response rate was 24.2% (n=121).

>> Click here to view this survey's results

Northwest Ohio Greenhouse Industry Residential Survey Findings (2009)

This was a survey conducted by the University of Toledo's Urban Affairs Center which focused on obtaining information on the characteristics and motivations of persons buying greenhouse products in northwest Ohio, particularly in terms of the competition between greenhouses and "big box" or chain stores, and measuring consumer awareness of the Maumee Valley Growers brand.

>> Click here to view this survey's results

Research

Ohio State University Extension Links
Research on Disease Resistance
Plant Disease Databases and Research
Pesticides & Pest Management Research
Other Plant Research Links

Resources

Maps
- Maumee Valley Growers Greenhouses (PDF)
Organizations
Grant Agencies
- American Floral Endowment
- Fred C. Gloeckner Foundation
Trade Publications
Data & Reports
- USDA Floriculture Crop Summaries
Government
University Floriculture/Horticulture

About the Cluster

Staff

Beth Fausey Scheckelhoff Cluster Champion, Maumee Valley Growers	Neil Reid Director of the Urban Affairs Center, Associate Professor of Geography and Planning The University of Toledo
Michael C. Carroll Director of the Center for Regional Development, Assistant Professor of Economics, Bowling Green State University	Joe Perlaky Project Manager, Maumee Valley Growers
Bruce W. Smith Professor of Geography, Bowling Green State University	Jay D. Gatrell Assistant Professor of Geography and Women's Studies, Indiana State University
Thomas Steiger Director of the Sociology Research Laboratory and Professor of Sociology & Women's Studies, Indiana State University	Claudio Pasian Associate Professor of Horticulture and Crop Science, The Ohio State University
Trevor Fuller Graduate Research Assistant in Geography Indiana State University

Participants

The Toledo Botanical Garden	Urban Affairs Center The University of Toledo
The Ohio State University Ohio Agriculture Business Enhancement	Department of Geography & Planning The University of Toledo
Center for Regional Development Bowling Green State University	Indiana State University
US Department of Agriculture	Regional Growth Partnership of Northwest Ohio
The Toledo Farmers' Market