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12 / TREES
A NEW WORLD ORDER OR JUST ANOTHER PRICE BLIP? John Murphy, owner and operator of Annaveigh Plants and leading tree expert provides a fascinating insight into the costs of tree production and factors influencing end prices in Ireland
O
ver the past 35 years, I have watched plant prices rise in the Spring only to fall back to where they were the previous Autumn when the new crops come online. This trend began to change about three years ago and in the case of trees and transplants prices have continued to rise on a yearly basis. So what are the underlying causes? Land, Labour, and Capital as factors of production were originally identified by the early political economists such as Adam Smith and Karl Marx and they still apply. During the early 2000s, as nursery prices remained static and production costs rose, many smaller nurseries in Holland, Germany and Belgium realised the return from investment was not worth it and began leaving the business. Many of these operations were family businesses and with younger people not interested in ‘dirty hands working’ so they had no succession. The outcome was Europe came out of recession with a reduced production base. As we came out of recession, demand and prices increased and with a lack of product, prices did not fall back as normal.
Summer 2019 / www.horticultureconnected.ie / HORTICULTURECONNECTED
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