What is normally the owner's scope on a greenhouse project?
The owner typically carries land and legal title, permits and approvals, site access and levelling, drainage, water source development and connection, grid connection to the site boundary, fencing and security, staff facilities, local taxes and duties, and the agronomic programme. These items are routinely excluded from supplier quotations, so a project budgeted only from supplier prices is understated. List owner scope explicitly in the responsibility matrix before comparing bids.
What actually drives the answer
Earthworks and levelling tolerance are technical items: the supplier's structure has a required flatness, and achieving it can be a significant civil cost on sloped ground.
Water development — borehole, reservoir, pumping and treatment — is frequently the largest owner-scope item and is dictated by the water analysis.
Power to the boundary, including transformer and metering, is normally the owner's cost, with the internal distribution in the supplier's scope.
Permits, environmental approvals and construction notifications sit with the owner in most jurisdictions and control the project start date.
Operational readiness — trained staff, inputs, packaging and route to market — is also owner scope, and its absence delays revenue even after a perfect handover.
Variables that change the answer
- Site topography and ground conditions
- Distance to water and power
- Local permitting regime
- Contract model chosen
Evidence a supplier needs before quoting
- Topographic and geotechnical survey
- Water source data and analysis
- Distance and capacity of the nearest grid connection
What this answer does not settle
- Scope boundaries differ by contract and country; use this as a budgeting checklist, not a legal allocation.
Responsibility
- Professional review:
- Owner's engineer
- Delivered by:
- Local civil contractor and utility providers
- Feeds RFQ section:
- Scope of work and responsibility matrix
Sources
- Good Agricultural Practices for greenhouse vegetable productionFood and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) · 2013 · Primary source · accessed 2026-08-21
More in this topic
Spotted an error? Write to support@seedmatchgroup.com — see our corrections policy.