Managing production risks in the nursery^©

Plant production in nurseries is subject to different risks including finances, marketing, weather, and human resources. There are a number of tools for nursery business owners to manage the different risks. Issues related to the labor pool, human resource management, and turnover of labor and staff affects labor intensive businesses like nurseries. Considering mechanization or automation can assist in managing some labor issues. Production costs of individual items in the nursery affect pricing and decisions of which products are profitable and should remain in a nursery's product mix. A spreadsheet tool is available to calculate costs of individual products or groups of similar products in the complex production scheme of a business carrying hundreds of different products. Nursery operations can choose among different insurance products to cover production risks related to weather and marketing. A brief introduction to nursery insurance, adjusted gross revenue (AGR), and AGR-Lite outlines similarities and differences between the products.