Why Canada has the largest greenhouse hub in N. America?

Added on 10 February 2025

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Why Canada has the largest greenhouse hub in N. America?

Photo Courtesy of Agritecture

Leamington, Ontario, home to nearly 2000 acres of greenhouse production, holds the distinction of being the largest concentration of greenhouses in North America. At the inaugural CEAg World conference when I asked Christopher Higgins, an expert in Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA), why Leamington dominates the greenhouse industry—especially when the US, with its larger economy, lacks a similarly centralized hub—his response was two words: “currency arbitrage.”

While this concept, where Canadian growers benefit from the exchange rate between the US and Canadian dollars, is part of the explanation, there are several more layers to Leamington’s success story. To fully understand whether currency arbitrage alone explains Leamington's dominance, we need to examine the broader economic and logistical factors, including labor, energy, equipment, taxes, and transportation.