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Community Agricultural Programs & Urban Food Hubs

Greenhouses & Green Roofs

Camilo J. Vergara, photographer. Greenhouses, Recovery Park Farms. A neighbor commented "It is food over there. They sell it to Whole Foods or Eastern Market." Dubois St. at Kirby St. Detroit. 2018. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

If your urban agriculture project will be located in a seasonal climate and the project’s goal is to provide year-round produce, then a greenhouse is an ideal growing environment.

Planning for a new greenhouse requires a few considerations. The first one is proper site selection. If the greenhouse is too far away from the local labor pool, there won’t be enough workers to maintain and harvest the crops. To operate a greenhouse there must be easy access to water and electricity. Another consideration is how far the greenhouse will be from a viable market. Without customers there won’t be sales or profits. Labor pool size, access to utilities, and a sufficient number of viable customers are all important consideration for selecting a good site and ensuring a profitable greenhouse business.

While year-round crop production is one of the main advantages of a greenhouse, energy consumption is one of its disadvantages. It’s beyond the scope of this overview to discuss energy consumption.

The following web sites link to information related to greenhouses and green roofs.

Selected Books

The following materials link to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Links to digital content are provided when available.