Two tomato plans may look equally attractive when the comparison stops at margin per square metre. If the existing team is already fully committed, ask a second question: how much work does each plan require to earn that margin?
This can change the choice before the business adds another growing block. More floor area is useful only when the production program can be carried out, including the work that brings the crop to its buyer.
A similar area margin can use very different amounts of time
Berrueta, Dogliotti and Giménez’s 2020 study evaluated 110 tomato crops in 67 greenhouses on 23 selected farms in Canelones and San José, southern Uruguay, during the 2014/15 and 2015/16 seasons. It combined crop and labor records with calculated economic results, using weekly wholesale-market prices and specified costs.
The authors give a useful rounded illustration: at about US$6/m² of their defined crop net margin, margin per recorded work-hour ranged from about US$6 to US$24. Those levels correspond to about 1 and 0.25 work-hours per square metre over the recorded crop period.
These are levels illustrated from the observations, not a matched pair of farms or evidence that one change cut labor by a particular percentage. The recorded hours excluded shared irrigation and fertigation work; the cost calculation excluded land and machinery fixed costs and taxes. The result is the study’s crop margin, not complete farm profit.
Its lesson is practical: a per-area result alone does not show how much of a scarce team the crop has used.
Keep money and hours on the same basis
For your next decision, compare feasible production plans over a clearly defined crop window. Keep each plan’s expected margin, occupied area and required work-hours together. A shorter crop and a longer crop should not look equivalent merely because both figures carry “per square metre” on the label.
Use the same margin definition for both plans. If one budget includes packing, sales-related work or a share of common operations while the other omits it, resolve that difference before interpreting the hourly result. Include the owner’s and family members’ work consistently, rather than letting unpaid time disappear from one option.
Margin per work-hour is the remaining defined margin divided by the hours required to produce it. Labor costs were already included in the Uruguay study’s economic calculation. Its hourly margin is therefore neither a wage rate nor extra money that can simply be added to payroll savings.
Find what creates the workload
When two plans compete for limited labor, ask the crop manager to explain the work behind their different requirements. Is it crop care, harvest handling, packing, or a buyer’s presentation requirement? Are the estimates based on records from a comparable crop, or on an assumption about a new way of working?
A proposed reduction in hours needs an operational explanation. Leaving a necessary task out of the plan improves the ratio on paper without making the work go away. Equally, extra work may support a valuable product or a more dependable customer. Keep that commercial purpose visible when comparing the options.
Use the comparison to identify a choice the team can act on: retain the current production approach, test a specific change, revise a handling or sales arrangement, or reduce the area assigned to the more demanding program. The historical study does not select that action for another farm.
Choose a workable plan, not just the highest ratio
A higher margin per hour deserves attention when labor is the binding limit. It does not automatically deliver the highest total margin, the required sales volume or the best fit with other crops. Review those outcomes alongside the hours, rather than turning a useful ratio into the only objective.
Then check whether the preferred plan fits the actual busy periods. Enough hours across an entire crop does not establish that harvest and packing can both be completed when needed. Resolve that capacity question with the operations team before committing more area.
If the selected plan requires additional facilities, carry its own labor requirement and margin assumptions into the greenhouse investment model. The decision should connect the crop’s return with the time needed to earn it, so an attractive square-metre figure does not conceal an unworkable production commitment.
