Floral Industry

From NarratingLandscapes

For myself I hold no preferences among flowers, so long as they are wild, free, spontaneous. Bricks to all greenhouses! Black thumb and cutworm to the potted plant!

~Edward Abbey

Amy Stewart, author of “Flower Confidential: The Good, the Bad and the Beautiful in the Business of Flowers” (Algonquin Books, 2007), advises that it is through the combined achievements of free trade, advanced science, high-speed transportation, and mass marketing that the business of cut flowers as been transformed from what was once an uncertain living into a global industry. Today, industrialized greenhouses protect plants from the quirks of weather, and refrigerated trucks, planes and warehouses provide transcontinental “cold chains.” Consumers have been trained by the system also; conditioned to want certain flowers on a certain schedule and even to prefer those flowers that merchants have found easiest to transport. Conspicuous consumption also plays its part here. Customers don’t just want any old flower, they want the best blossom, and they are willing to pay for it. Historically, this may have been a contributing factor in the industry has being involved in some less than ethical practices.

The Deconstructive Gesture (after McKinlay & Starkey 1998) endorses that one “understand the extent to which…persuasiveness depend[s] on a set of strategic exclusions.” Like any specialty item that is brought to the western world of consumerism, there is an untold story and price behind the luxury of having that item at our fingertips. The customer rarely has any idea about where or how their flowers came to them; they don't ask and they aren’t told. What they aren’t being told however is even so, suddenly coming to light. With ‘Green’ movements taking on national dimensions, it is affecting the ‘green industry’ – the flower industry. As in other industries the floral industry is evaluating what is environmentally acceptable. Should flowers be grown without synthetic or toxic pesticides? Should the emphasis be on fair trade and workers rights? Should there be a push for flowers grown locally, not flown or trucked over long distances, which would increase not only the florist’s, but also the consumer’s carbon footprint by-association?

Seventy nine percent of cut flowers sold in the U.S.A. are imported from countries like Colombia and Ecuador, but only a minority of flower farms have adopted environmentally friendly methods, like banning toxic chemicals for pest control. Nora Ferm of the International Labor Rights Forum, where she is the program director of a “fairness in flowers[1]” public education campaign claims that few farms bother with occupational health and safety measures for workers, who can suffer pesticide-related illnesses like headaches, rashes and birth abnormalities among their children.

Ferm encourages the public to look for floral eco-labels that can now be found in most floral retailers. The labels are meant to highlight different aspects of sustainability. Fair Trade[2] and VeriFlora[3], two big organizations in the U.S.A., impose strict environmental and labour standards on farms they audit, though they do not require them to be fully organic. Use of pesticides is restricted, and workers must be paid equitably.

It is the most environmentally conscious flower buyers that are bothered by buying flowers flown and trucked over long distances, no matter how sustainable. Amy Stewart says buying local flowers should be the first choice. But, she says workers should also be supported. Of visiting South America, she said she found that “life on any certified farm is better — it doesn’t matter which certification it is.” Besides, she noted, it is difficult to assess what is greener: large loads of flowers transported over long distances efficiently or a smaller number grown locally, but requiring a heated greenhouse and a trip to a farmers’ market in a pickup truck. “How do I compare the energy efficiency per flower?” she asked.

Sources:

To Pull A Thorn From the Side of the Planet - New York Times: http://www.veriflora.com/downloads/ToPullAThorn_NYT_020308.pdf

The Human Flower Project: http://www.humanflowerproject.com/index.php/weblog/flower_confidential/

Kuchka, H.E. (2001). Method for Theory: A Prelude to Human Ecosystems. Journal of Ecological Anthropology 5 (Special Issue): pp. 3-78.