Iowa is no stranger to specialty crop farming, and flowers are one of those specialty crops. Since they can be planted so close together, flowers can offer substantial yields on smaller acreages. However, as it is with many specialty crops, there isn’t a lot of data to refer to when operating a flower farm, which can make the financial side of things more difficult. John Hendrickson, farm viability specialist at the Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said they are in their first year of a three-year project to collect data and offer research and tools for specialty crop farmers to use.
Most of the major ag commodities have plenty of benchmarks for producers to refer to, but that just isn’t the case for specialty crops like flowers. Hendrickson said this can lead to a lot of burnout for those producers.
Hendrickson added that many of these flower producers are adding value by doubling up as florists as well.
Hendrickson hosted a session on flower farm financials at this year’s Practical Farmers of Iowa Annual Conference. His research is funded by a SARE grant. For more information, visit projects.sare.org.
