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Citation: Diakoulakis, G.N.;
Tsiboukas, K.; Savvas, D. Exploring the
Financial Viability of Greenhouse
Tomato Growers under Climate
Change-Induced Multiple Stress.
Proceedings 2024,94, 16.
https://doi.org/10.3390/
proceedings2024094016
Academic Editor: Eleni
Theodoropoulou
Published: 23 January 2024
Copyright: © 2024 by the authors.
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
This article is an open access article
distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY) license (https://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
4.0/).
proceedings
Proceeding Paper
Exploring the Financial Viability of Greenhouse Tomato Growers
under Climate Change-Induced Multiple Stress †
Giorgos N. Diakoulakis 1, * , Konstantinos Tsiboukas 1and Dimitrios Savvas 2
1Laboratory of Agribusiness Management, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development,
Agricultural University of Athens, Iera Odos 75, 11855 Athens, Greece; tsiboukas@aua.gr
2Laboratory of Vegetable Production, Department of Crop Production, Agricultural University of Athens,
Iera Odos 75, 11855 Athens, Greece; dsavvas@aua.gr
*Correspondence: di_gi@aua.gr
†Presented at the 17th International Conference of the Hellenic Association of Agricultural Economists,
Thessaloniki, Greece, 2–3 November 2023.
Abstract: In this study, we implement a linear programming farm model to explore the impact of
climate change-induced multiple stress on the financial viability of greenhouse tomato growers. The
main results are that new technologies and innovations can compensate growers for any profit loss
associated with climate change. However, if the cost of adaptation is high enough, then its financial
benefits are constrained by how efficient these innovations are in terms of productivity. We did not
observe significant differences in input use between ‘innovative’ and ‘conventional’ production, and
the yield under the adoption of new technologies was higher compared to ‘conventional’ production.
Keywords: linear programming; farm model; greenhouse tomato; climate change
1. Introduction
The relationship between climate change and agriculture has a long tradition in the
scholarly literature, e.g., [
1
–
3
]. Additionally, during the last couple of years, the results
of climate change, like high temperature and drought, have significantly affected the
financial viability of producers [
4
,
5
]. To this end, many scholars call for the adoption of
new technologies and innovations both as a mean towards environmental improvements
but also as a mean towards producers’ (or growers’) financial stability [6].
Furthermore, mathematical programming farm models have been excessively used
to understand farmers’ (or growers) production choices, e.g., [
7
,
8
]. Among them, linear
programming farm models (thereafter, LP-FM) have been used to analyze production plans
in the agricultural sector, e.g., [9].
In this study, we are interested in the impact of climate change-induced multiple stress,
namely increased heat, draught, and salinity. Particularly, we utilize a simple LP-FM to
explore two vital questions. First, how climate change-induced multiple stress will affect
the financial viability of Mediterranean greenhouse tomato growers. Second, how the
adoption of new technologies and innovations can compensate growers for any profit
losses due to climate change-induced multiple stress.
2. Materials and Methods
Our methodology can be divided into the following steps. First, we interviewed
22 greenhouse tomato growers (both in-person and online), where approximately 72.72%
of the responders were located in Crete, whereas the remaining ones were located in the
region of Peloponnese. The rationale of using Crete as the case study is because Crete,
followed by Peloponnese, is the leading region in greenhouse vegetable production in
Greece [10].
Proceedings 2024,94, 16. https://doi.org/10.3390/proceedings2024094016 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/proceedings
Proceedings 2024,94, 16 2 of 3
The second step was to design an LP-FM. Specifically, we assumed a representative
greenhouse beef tomato grower whose objective was to choose their annual deci-hectare
amount of fertilizers, chemical substances for pest management, the number of plants,
and water consumption, such that her annual per deci-hectare gross margin was to be
maximized, subject to both technical and financial constraints. The choice of these inputs
(decision variables) was selected based on the answers given by the interviewed growers.
Also, the upper and lower limits of the constraints were determined by the answers given
by the growers.
The third step was to estimate the production coefficients. To do so, an approximated
linear production function was used. The result of this estimation was used afterwards to
the LP-FM to determine the optimal input use under the ‘current situation’ (or business-as-
usual scenario). These values serve as a comparison between the current situation and our
hypothetical scenarios.
The final step was to implement three hypothetical scenarios on the impact of climate
change-induced multiple stress on both the production and financial efficiency of a ‘conven-
tional’ production system: a low, a moderate, and a high impact scenario. In each of these
three scenarios, further assumptions were made on the production and financial efficiency
of a production system that utilizes new technologies and innovations that exhibit higher
tolerance to climate change compared to ‘conventional’ one.
3. Results
The main results of our analysis can be summarized as follows. First, the adoption of
new technologies and innovations can compensate greenhouse tomato growers, even in
cases where the production efficiency of these technologies and innovations is close to the
‘conventional’ one.
Second, cost considerations might be important, especially when the production
efficiency of these new technologies and innovations is close to the ‘conventional’ one.
Third, we did not find any significant difference in input use between ‘conventional’
production and production that utilizes new technologies and innovations. However, if
the grower is constrained to produce a certain level of yield, then the adoption of new
technologies and innovations that are more tolerant to climate change is likely to entail
environmental improvements in terms of less input use, as well.
Finally, the yield been the produced crops in the latter cases exceeds that under the
former one in almost every simulation. This result highlights potential social benefits
because the adoption of new technologies and innovations can ‘secure’ a potential food
supply under severe climate change conditions.
4. Conclusions
In this article, we tried to explore whether the adoption of new technologies and
innovations can compensate greenhouse tomato growers for their profit losses due to
climate change-induced multiple stress. The answer is yes, but the cost of adaptation
should also be considered. Importantly, our analysis highlights that the adoption of new
technologies and innovations can cover any excess demands for tomato. Thus, it might be
down to policymakers to incentivize the transition to sustainable agriculture, especially if
‘securing’ food supply is their primal objective.
However, some limitations should be spelled out. First, our sample size is small,
which may reduce the robustness of our estimated coefficients. Secondly, we gathered
information by performing in-person interviews and by email. In most cases, growers did
not keep a detail logbook regarding their production activities and the costs associated
with them. Thus, our data are likely to exhibit some level of noise. The implication of these
two limitations is that we exhibit high p-values, meaning that the estimated coefficients
should be interpreted with caution. Finally, we focused our analysis on the identification of
only four inputs. However, factors like labor, energy, and electricity consumption could be
important as well. Thus, an extension of this study is left as an area for future research.
Proceedings 2024,94, 16 3 of 3
Author Contributions: Conceptualization, G.N.D. and K.T.; methodology, G.N.D. and K.T.; software,
G.N.D.; formal analysis, G.N.D.; resources, D.S. and K.T.; data curation, G.N.D. and D.S.; writing—
original draft preparation, G.N.D.; writing—review and editing, G.N.D., K.T. and D.S.; supervision,
K.T. and D.S.; project administration, D.S.; funding acquisition, D.S. All authors have read and agreed
to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding: This research was supported by PRIMA 2018-11 within the project ‘VEGADAPT: Adapting
Mediterranean vegetable crops to climate change-induced multiple stress’, a Research and Innovation
Action funded by the Greek General Secretariat for Research and Innovation (GSRI) and supported
by the European Union.
Institutional Review Board Statement: Not applicable.
Informed Consent Statement: Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the
study.
Data Availability Statement: The raw data can be found at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8325730
(accessed on 7 September 2023). Also, we used a slightly modified version of the GAMS code that
can be found at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7024627 (accessed on 26 August 2022).
Acknowledgments: We would like to express our sincere thanks to Dimitrios Kremmydas for his
invaluable insights and guidance during the design of the linear programming farm model.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflicts of interest. The funders had no role in the
design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of the data; in the writing of the
manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results.
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