Organic flowers a blooming business

It's morning. You want coffee. And, while picking up your grande-bold-low-fat-no-foam latte you decide to splurge on a beautiful bunch of mixed flowers. Why not? With only a few bucks you now own a small slice of bright, colourful, fragrance.

But there are a lot of politics in that bouquet.

That bouquet represents the fight between local and agri-business; the battle between pesticide-use and organically grown; and the struggle between fair trade and corporate incentives.

There are a lot of politics in that bouquet.

That's because flower production and sales is a multi-billion dollar business that spreads across the globe. Bought the bouquet in your local grocery store? Chances are those flowers came from across the world, in a refridgerated freighter and then a cold-truck; they reached their destination, poly-sealed and pre-packed. And the price you paid is dictated by the major players in the industry -- the growers/producers/pickers and packers that represent multi-national corporations -- corporations that monopolize the industry.

The political aspect, then, is the revolt against the strictly profit motivated aim of these transborder multi-national flower producers.

In a 1997 report, by the US-based Environmental Working Group, commercially grown roses were found to contain up to 50 times the amount of cancer causing pesticides that are legally allowed in the food we eat.

While many environmentalists concede that these pesticides offer little danger to us -- the end consumer -- they do offer a very real and very dangerous hazard to the workers involved in the growing, picking, packing and shipping of these flowers.

For example, Columbia supplies 64% of America's cut roses. In order to keep this blooming business, the flower corporations use a multitude of pesticides -- most designed to enhance the rose and kill the bugs. Yet, this heavy reliance on pesticides has a direct and measurable impact on the flower workers -- unskilled labour composed, primarily, of women. In fact, two-thirds of Colombian flower workers experience headaches, nausea, impaired vision, rashes and asthma, according to the Pesticide Action Network of North America.

In reality, organic flowers don't look or smell any different from non-organic flowers. But they are better for the environment and organic flowers help promote socially just working conditions among local and international growers. Since few consumers realize that close to 70% of cut flowers sold in North America are grown overseas, where growing conditions are better, labor is cheaper and, Jarocki says, pesticide regulation is more lax, it is important for people to vote with their dollars.

As such, environmentalists and social justice activists urge consumers to think before they buy a bouquet. Rather than spending $10 on a mixed bunch of corporate fleurs, these activists are urging consumers to ask their flower suppliers the tougher questions -- are these organic flowers? Are these flowers locally produced? -- and when the answer is no: to walk away.

"People always say, 'You don't eat flowers.' But you don't want the flowers you're giving your mom to be produced on the backs of some Ecuadorean floral worker," explained Jeff Stephens of Scientific Certification Systems, a certifier of organic-flower producers in Emeryville, CA, in a USA Today interview last year.

And more and more consumers are making decisions based on environmental and socially just principles. In the US, alone, the sale of organic flowers topped $8 million in 2003 -- an estimated 52% increase over the previous year, according to the Organic Trade association.

For more information on organic flowers in Canada go to:
http://ecoflora.ca/Home.html

For online organic flowers go to:
http://www.enn.com/aff.html?id=779

For more information organic flowers in the US go to:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-05-04-organic-flowers_x.htm