After the advent of green revolution, more emphasis is laid on the quality of the agricultural product along with the quantity of production to meet the ever-growing food and nutritional requirements. Both these demands can be met when the environment for the plant growth is suitably controlled. The need to protect the crops against unfavourable environmental conditions led to the development of protected agriculture. Greenhouse is the most practical method of achieving the objectives of protected agriculture, where natural environment is modified by using sound engineering principles to achieve optimum plant growth and yield. Poly house cultivation has become an important policy of Indian Agriculture. Our country is self dependent on food grain production but to fulfill the nutritional security, the gap between increasing demand of horticultural produce has to be filled. This gap can not be filled by the traditional horticulture which required large area under horticulture to increase the production for the ever growing population. Green house technology has potential to produce more produce per unit area with increased input use efficiency. Therefore, this problem can be coped up by adopting green /poly house technology for the horticultural production. For example if one lakhs hectare area under vegetable cultivation is brought out under poly house cultivation the annual availability of vegetable will be increased by at least 100 lakhs tons. Besides this it will also increase the significant jobs opportunity for the skilled rural men, youths and rural women.
Total production of vegetables in India is next to China, but per capita availability of vegetables is much lower than required. The production of vegetable crops are to be increased to meet the demand of the ever growing population otherwise per capita availability of vegetables will further go down. There is lot of pressure on cultivable land caused due to industrialization, urbanization and expansion of the rural villages. Therefore, it is utmost necessary to improve the productivity of crops including vegetables by adopting intensive cultivation, hydroponics and poly house cultivation. Adopting poly house cultivation the productivity of vegetable crops can be increased by 3-5 times as compared to open environment. Besides productivity, the better quality of produce is also obtained under poly house cultivation. This technology can be adopted by the rural youth for more income per unit of land.

The yield under poly house cultivation can be achieved to the level of 5-8 times as compared to the open crop cultivation. Various trials conducted at agro research centers indicates that capsicum ( planted in mid September), cucumber (planting –mid October) and tomato (November planting) under poly house produced 1060kg, 1460 kg and 1530 kg per 100 square meter. The duration of these crops were 6 months and more than 90% of total yield were obtained during off-season (during winter before the start of summer) which fetches significantly higher market price (2-4 times than normal season). Further, the crop duration crop can be extended up to the July –August with the application of micro irrigation and fertigation and yield can be achieved to the level of 20-25 kg/m2. Therefore, it is possible to harvest a single crop round year with minimum additional inputs and higher income can be generated. Further Cut Flowers like Carnations, Gerbera, Lilly, Rose etc.can be grown under polyhouses giving high returns and top quality produce. The potential of flouriculture under protected cultivation is huge for indian and global markets.
The cost of construction of poly house depends on location of site, size and shape of poly house, poly house structure (wooden or GI/ Steel) and types of poly house (naturally ventilated or environmental controlled). The cost of bigger naturally ventilated poly house (500 to 1000 m2) ranges from Rs.500 to 800 per square meter whereas the environmental controlled poly houses required 2 to 3  times investments over previous one.  The per unit area construction cost of smaller size poly houses are more as compared to larger poly house. Similarly the cost of cultivation in larger poly house is significantly lower than smaller poly house.
It is possible to get back the investment on poly house within a 2 year to the maximum 3 years period. If a entrepreneurs /cultivator go for poly house for nursery production of   high yielding vegetable plants in an area where large scale vegetable cultivation is done, in such condition he can get back his investment within 2 years by providing quality planting materials to vegetable   or flower growers.  

In modern hi-tech method Flowers are grown in polyhouses. The quality of flowers produced is superior, because inside climate or micro-climate such as temperature, humidity, light, ventilation etc is controlled.
With changing life styles and increased urban affluence, floriculture has assumed a definite commercial status in recent times and during the past 1-2 decades particularly. Appreciation of the potential of commercial floriculture has resulted in the blossoming of this field into a viable agri-business option.
Availability of natural resources like diverse agro-climatic conditions permit production of a wide range of temperate and tropical flowers, almost all through the year in some part of the country or other. Improved communication facilities have increased their availability in every part of the country. The commercial activity of production and marketing of floriculture products is also a source of gainful and quality employment to scores of people.
India has an ancient heritage when it comes to floriculture. Floriculture has emerged as an economically viable diversification option in the Indian agribusiness and has captured the interests of many new entrepreneurs into agricultural sector in recent times. With perception on floriculture business potential rapidly changing, the corporates have increasingly forayed into the sector. Indian roses, carnations, orchids, gladioli and anthurium are being well received in Japan, Netherlands, USA, Germany and France. Besides flowers, India also exports seeds, bulbs, dried flowers, ferns, leaves and grass. Floricultural crops like roses, gerberas, carnetions etc. are grown in green houses. The open field crops are chrysanthemum, roses, gaillardia, lily, mary gold, aster, tube rose etc.
The floricultural production has doubled during the last ten years and production of cut flowers and loose flowers have been growing at 15 to 20 per cent every year. The area under floriculture increased from 53,000 ha in the year 1993-94 to 2,50,000 ha during 2008-09, which is more than 400% increase in the span of 15 years. There is tremendous increase in loose flower as well as in cut flower production. Similarly, the floricultural exports have taken a quantum jump in the last decade. 
In the global floriculture industry, competitive advantages can be created and retained only by achieving a critical mass of production and our country has natural advantages that can be harnessed to create such competitive advantages in the production and exports of cut flowers. The international trade in floriculture is large and estimated to grow to USD 16 billion by the year 2010 from the present level of USD 11 billion. Although, the value of exports of floriculture products from India has shown very significant growth, from Rs.18.83 crores (1993-94) to over Rs.305 crores (2005-06), India is still a marginal player in the world floriculture trade indicating the strong potential that can be exploited in the sector.
If India has to achieve the ambitious export target of Rs.1,000 crores per annum over the next 5 years, a paradigm shift is required. The key issues that need to be addressed in the Indian context are - Economies of scale, Product range/ Latest varieties, Year round exports, Quality control and Certification, Cold chain management and transit facilities.