Pulling Two Ends of the Same Rope

The first thing that must be taken into account when looking at the Horticulture industry is: who is controlling it? When you break it down you begin to see the start of the problem. There is currently a generational separation occurring in the industry. You have people aged 55-70 years old doing business the way they have for decades. Then you have the group of late twenties to early thirties coming onto the scene trying to totally change the game with more technology, new methods of communication, and even a movement behind them. This may seem great - almost a revitalization; however, the problem is that even though interest is almost equally held between the two dominant parties (it’s not as if there are no middle-aged people in the industry), the money is not. The older generations hold most of the money that they have accrued through hard work over many years. The younger generations are trying to break into the industry, but have little money and much debt which makes it difficult to do so. This means that a lot of times the younger generations must start off trying to work with the older generations to get a foothold in the industry. Now the generation gap comes into play in the strongest sense.  Along with this gap comes a lapse in communication.

Older generations often find themselves at odds with a changing industry. Younger members of the industry want to go global on the internet with social media. Most of the older generations see this either as a waste of time or just don’t understand the concept (or both). They want to do things the way they have done them for the last 30 years. However, they are finding that these old ways are failing in today’s new society. To start this journey to change the industry and how it communicates things we must better the communication within the generations in the industry. We must come together and mix both the old ideas of growing and hard work with the new ideas of Twitter and Google + to become successful once again. The opportunity for massive growth in the industry is out there, we just have to start envisioning the future and adapting as the world changes.