Buy real Christmas trees

Key Takeaways

• Christmas trees have uniquely long production cycles. Most retail-sized trees take seven to 10 years to grow, leaving growers exposed to multi-year weather volatility, biological pressures and labor shortages in ways most specialty crops are not.

• Artificial-tree importers are major competitors. Between 85 percent and 95 percent of artificial trees sold in the United States are imported from China, replacing years of real-tree demand and supporting few domestic jobs relative to U.S.-grown trees.

• Production capacity has contracted significantly. From 2002 to 2022, the number of farms harvesting Christmas trees decreased almost 30 percent and acreage declined by more than 150,000 acres, reflecting decades of economic pressure.

• Real trees deliver environmental and economic benefits. U.S.-grown Christmas trees support tens of thousands of domestic jobs, preserve almost 300,000 acres of open space and sequester carbon during the decade they grow – advantages artificial trees cannot replicate.

For many families, choosing a real Christmas tree marks the official start of the holiday season. The scent, the visit to the local farm, watching dad wrestle a half-rusted saw through the branches and trunk, hours spent sifting through family ornaments – those moments remain an iconic part of American Christmas culture. But behind that holiday ritual is a specialty-crop industry now contending with record imports of artificial competitors, decade-long production cycles, increasing biological pressures and years of increasingly volatile weather. Even so, thousands of family Christmas-tree farms continue to bring millions of fresh U.S.-grown trees to market each year. Understanding the economics behind the crop sheds light on the challenges growers face and why buying a real tree is, now more than ever, an easy and meaningful way to support U.S. farmers.