CVGGA – Cuyahoga Valley Greenhouse Growers Association

Who we are

LEADERSHIP

Brad McBride, Executive Director

Brad McBride, CVGGA Executive Director, is an urban forester and project manager with Davey Resource Group, a natural resource consulting division of The Davey Tree Expert Company. Through education, training and work experience, McBride has gained extensive knowledge of botany, ecology and resource consultation. Work experience includes service as a Technical Support Specialist for the Davey Resource Group in collaboration with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) during the Asian Longhorned Beetle (ALB) eradication project in New York, New York. During his schooling, McBride studied biology with a concentration in advanced botany. He conducted undergraduate research at The Wilds in southeastern Ohio comparing woody plant species composition and Importance Values between disturbed and remnant forest patches on a reclaimed strip mine. Education B.S., Biology, Muskingum College, 2007 Certification/Special Training Certified Arborist (OH6501-A), International Society of Arboriculture, 2008; Licensed Pesticide Applicator #110934, Ohio Department of Agriculture, 2008; Member, Ohio Academy of Science, 2007.  McBride and the CVGGA combine the knowledge of natural resources, plant morphology, plant pathology, soil structure, nutrient applications, pesticide application, fertilization and technology to bring cutting edge hydroponic solutions to Northeast Ohio greenhouse growers.

CVGGA

The Cuyahoga Valley Greenhouse Growers Association (CVGGA), established in 2009, is a not-for-profit cooperative venture and business network of regional greenhouse growers and related professionals committed to reclaiming Northeast Ohio’s reputation as the “Greenhouse Capital of America.”

The CVGGA, which serves Northeast Ohio’s agriculture, horticulture, floriculture and herbiculture communities, was established to provide a joint, unified voice for the vegetable, plant, floral and herbal sectors of the region’s greenhouse industry.  

The vegetable sector includes growers of succulent tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet peppers and lettuce.

The floral sector includes growers of cut flowers, potted ornamental blooming plants, bedding plants and/or propagation material.

The herbal sector includes growers of herbs and spices and providers of herb-related products and services.

All CVGGA growers offer products grown indoors under glass or plastic. This commonality among methods of production and the recognition that all three sectors face many of the same issues led to the creation of the CVGGA as a vehicle for identifying and addressing shared concerns.

Greenhouse growers are Northeast Ohio’s 21st Century farmers, producing world-class products in harmony with the environment.

Focused on both sustainability and profitability, CVGGA is dedicated to propagating state-of-the-art new greenhouses and renovating older greenhouses to meet higher modern-day standards of energy conservation and “clean ‘n green” technology (such as soilless hydroponics). 

CVGGA membership includes hobbyists, farmers, retail and wholesale growers, commercial hydroponics equipment suppliers, greenhouse manufacturers and equipment suppliers, industry consultants, botanists, researchers, university and college educators and students, and allied trades professionals.  .

Through a collaborative process of sharing resources and knowledge, members help identify solutions to commonly shared technical and business problems

The CVGGA is committed to delivering services and research programs to its members to help keep them globally competitive and to keep a vibrant and sustainable greenhouse industry in Northeast Ohio while providing high-quality and safe greenhouse grown products to consumers.

CVGGA commits its greenhouse growers to the following principles:

• Marketing only the highest quality plants and produce possible under the CVGGA logo.
• Increasing demand through awareness and preference for quality, locally grown products from regional growers.
• Improving grower efficiency and profits through joint problem solving and networking to share best practices and resources.
• Growing the local economy by supporting new businesses that can supply CVVGA’s Northeast Ohio greenhouse network.

CVGGA is dedicated to serving its members by promoting the general interest of growers of greenhouse crops in Northeast Ohio by:

• Organizing seminars, tours and conferences for the purpose of information exchange and providing business opportunities.
• Distributing technical and marketing hydroponic greenhouse information.  
• Supporting and promoting university agricultural research.
• Offering greenhouse agricultural business and services directory information.
• Encouraging hydroponic greenhouse agriculture.
• Working with other green industry organizations for the betterment of the industry.

CVGGA is modeled on a government-funded non-profit called the Maumee Valley Growers Association (MVGA), an industry-based association aimed at strengthening the northwest Ohio (Toledo area) local greenhouse industry.  The association includes more than fifty individual Maumee Valley growers, who are alike in offering local plants but distinct in location, product mix and focus. The purpose of this project, which began in 2005, is to assess the competitive challenges facing northwest Ohio’s greenhouse nursery industry. The project is being funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the research team comprises faculty and staff from The University of Toledo, Bowling Green State University, Ohio State University, and Indiana State University.

Ohio State University (OSU), based in Columbus, is the flagship institution of the state’s public system of higher education.  CVGGA works with the university’s campus and research facilities at the OSU Extension Center at Wooster in Wayne County.  The center’s College of Food, Agricultural & Environmental Sciences features a department of Horticulture and Crop Science and the Ohio State Agricultural Technical Institute (ATI), which offers a Greenhouse Production and Management program.

The Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC) offers a Hydroponic Vegetable Program and an Agroecosystems Management Program.  The OARDC’s Local Food Systems social networking website is dedicated to the distribution infrastructure for local Ohio food systems.  The Wooster campus also offers VegNet (for vegetable crops) and the OSU Food Industries Center.

Like the MVGA, CVGGA is based on the concept of “cluster-based” economic development (CBED), and the association is working to organize Northeast Ohio’s greenhouse industry as an industrial cluster.

Experts define a “cluster” as a geographically bounded concentration of similar, related or complementary businesses with active channels for business transactions and communications.  These businesses share specialized infrastructure, labor markets and services, and are faced with common opportunities and threats.

The objective of our industrial cluster is to encourage individual greenhouse growers and their network of support companies and organizations to come together and engage in collaborative problem solving.

Concentration, or clustering, gives businesses an advantage over more isolated competitors. It provides access to more suppliers and customized support services,  to experienced and skilled labor pools, and to the inevitable transfer of knowledge that occurs where people casually meet and talk business. Clustering enables companies to focus on what they know and do best—they don’t have to do things they do not do well. Firms also benefit from synergy. Companies able to operate more or less as a system can use their resources more efficiently and collectively produce more than the sum of their individual outputs.

From the 1940s through the 1970s, the area around Cleveland and its suburbs had so many operating greenhouses that in 1972 The Cleveland Plain Dealer labeled it “The Greenhouse Capital of America.”  But an onslaught of less expensive imported vegetables, rising energy costs and old, polluting technologies caused the decline of the greenhouse industry in Northeast Ohio.

 It is the goal of the CCVGA to restore that leadership status based on the application of new concepts in greenhouse design technology, climate control and crop management, marketing and branding.  In the process, CVGGA will work toward sustaining and growing both the greenhouse industry and the local economy of Northeast Ohio.