Area used to grow greenhouse vegetables has increased in ten years

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The area used to grow the four primary greenhouse vegetables: tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and aubergines, was a total of 4.1 thousand hectares in 2023. That was 10 percent more than ten years previously. Most of the extra space was used to grow peppers and aubergines. After a peak in 2021, recent years have seen a decline in the area used for these four vegetables. Statistics Netherlands (CBS) reports this in its latest edition of The Netherlands in Numbers.

What kind of vegetables do we grow in our greenhouses?655 haCucumbersPeppers1,555 haTomatoes1,771 haAubergines123 ha

In 2023, these four primary greenhouse vegetables together occupied about the same area as the municipality of Amstelveen. Most of this area (over 43 percent) was used for tomatoes and nearly 38 percent for peppers, followed by cucumbers and aubergines.

Fewer farms growing greenhouse vegetables

In 2023, there were 625 farms growing greenhouse vegetables in the Netherlands, 29 percent fewer than a decade earlier. The biggest drop was in the number of tomato growers, with the number of farms growing vine tomatoes decreasing by nearly 50 percent. On the other hand, the number of farms grwoing cherry tomatoes grew by 150 percent.

A majority of the farms growing greenhouse vegetables still grow tomatoes (35 percent), followed by peppers (30 percent) and cucumbers (29 percent).


Greenhouse vegetable production has fallen in recent years

In 2023, the gross yield of greenhouse vegetables was 1.63 million tonnes, almost the same as a decade earlier. After rising steadily until 2020, yields then began to fall. In 2023, yields decreased by 2 percent compared to the previous year, to around the same leel as a decade earlier.

This decline in production is mainly due to high energy prices. Some tomato growers have switched to cucumbers, partly because these require less energy. The cucumber yield was up by 7 percent on the previous year. Aubergine, tomato and pepper yields all fell last year.

Sources

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