Benchmark Data for New England Flower Farms

Commodities

• Additional Plants: cut flowers

Practices

• Education and Training: other
• Farm Business Management: budgets/cost and returns, other

Cut flower production is a growing and valuable sector across the Northeast, but growers lack access to information needed to assess performance and make informed decisions about pricing, labor, crop and enterprise mix, or market channels. As a result, many flower farmers rely on anecdotal information, informal peer comparison, or benchmark resources from other sectors that do not fully reflect the realities of cut flower production and sales in the Northeast. Without relevant benchmarks, growers have limited ability to judge whether their pricing, labor use, and sales are financially sustainable. This can make it harder to improve profitability, use labor efficiently, and build a farm business that is both economically viable and personally sustainable over time.

This project will address that gap by developing regionally relevant benchmark data for cut flower farms in New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, and Massachusetts. It builds on Western SARE Project OW23-381, which piloted flower farm benchmarking in the western United States, and adapts that approach for New England's climate, production systems, market structures, and farm scale. The project team includes Lennie Larkin and John Hendrickson, who led the western effort, along with Jesse Wright of University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension.

The project will recruit at least 23 flower farmers through Extension networks and regional partnerships and will support them in entering financial and operational data through an online benchmarking survey. Participants will receive onboarding, technical assistance, and follow-up support to improve data quality and consistency. The project team will analyze the survey data to identify useful benchmark measures such as revenue per acre, labor efficiency, payroll ratio, and other indicators relevant to flower farm business management. Using benchmark findings and grower feedback, the project team will also develop at least two practical decision-support tools, such as enterprise budget templates or pricing resources, to help growers apply benchmark information in their own businesses.

Results will be shared through webinars, office hours, conference presentations, videos, and written educational materials designed for flower farmers and the agricultural service providers who support them. By generating practical benchmark data and tools tailored to Northeast flower farms, the project will help growers make more informed business decisions and strengthen the long-term viability of the region's cut flower sector. It will also contribute an important second regional dataset to this sector's emerging national benchmarking effort, strengthening the knowledge base available to this growing farm sector.

This project is focused on documenting and sharing the financial structure and business characteristics of New England cut flower farms through regional benchmark data collection and analysis. The long-term aim is to give flower farmers and the agricultural service providers who support them regionally relevant benchmark information they can use to make more informed farm business decisions. Project activities include recruiting participating flower growers, collecting and analyzing farm data, summarizing findings, and turning benchmark results into practical tools and educational materials that help farmers apply the information in their own businesses. The project team will utilize a phased outreach strategy to disseminate results as they are ready through webinars, conference presentations, office hours, and written and online educational materials.

Objectives

1. Generate a regionally relevant benchmark dataset for flower farms in New England.

• • Adapt and refine flower farm benchmarking survey.

2. Analyze benchmark findings and translate them into practical decision-support tools for use by farmers.

• • Clean, collate, and analyze data to create benchmarks.
  • Create summary resources.
  • Develop decision-support tools.

3. Share benchmark findings and tools with farmers and agricultural service providers.

• • Share results.