Global Flower Industry

Much like global warming, what we do at home impacts others a world away. In the global flower industry, patterns of growing and buying flowers are shifting as newly developed markets compete for traditional stalwarts and economic considerations impact world exporters.

HAWAIIAN LEIS ARE LOSING OUT

As we are seeing big shifts in the flower exporters, sufficient to impact the US market, Hawaii is experiencing similar loss of interest in the lei market. While we have customers asking us to make a simple dendrobium lei for a special occasion, usually they think our prices for a custom piece are too high at $50 to $60. So I gladly refer them to online suppliers, who not only have talent superior to ours in this area, but it's their heritage. But the lei market is slumping in the face of competition from Japan and Thailand and the reduction of Hawaiian land dedicated to flower growing and aspects like increased airport security make being a lei-seller more tedious today. Of Hawaiian exports,it seems that only the proteas have seen significant increases while all other cut flowers from Birds of Paradise to orchid varieties have fallen in the past five years.

COLUMBIA NEEDS PERMANENT TRADE DEAL The global flower industry was impacted in early 2008 as the US economy faltered with the crumbling lending inside the housing market, flower growers in Colombia, --the world's second-largest exporter of cut flowers --say they are being squeezed. Prices for flowers remain flat. The falling value of the US dollar has turned profits into losses.About 12 farms have closed in the past three years laying off some 15,000 employees. And a trade deal --that has allowed duty-free imports since 191 from Ecuador, Columbia, Bolivia and Peru-- would give Colombian flowers permanent duty-free entry into the United States may be rejected by the US Congress. According to Augusto Solano, president of the Colombian Association of Flower Exporters, "part of the problem is heavy reliance on the United States, where nearly six of every 10 flowers sold are imported from Colombia.

"Amid an economic slowdown, the US dollar has lost more than one-third of its value against the Colombian peso. As a result, the income in pesos of Colombian growers has plummeted, even though their worldwide exports increased from $966 million in 2006 to $1 billion last year."

And the shift from the neighbourhood florist to big box stores mean their low prices have cut into the earnings of Colombian producers.

BUY MORE FLOWERS IS THE SOLUTION In the global flower industry, South America's floraindustry's Valdez says that buying more flowers is the only way for an industry not to get crushed by the sleeping giants who are now waking to the possibililty that their climates and cheap labour provide in the international flower trade. ,"While Colombia, Ecuador, Kenya, and Holland grow 83% of the world�s cut flowers, said Valdez, Germany, the United Kingdom, the U.S., Holland and France buy 75% of imported all cut flowers." This video lets us peak inside a life dependent on the rose business in Ecuador and efforts to eliminate pesticides.

COFFEE MAY BE SIDE-LINED BY FLOWERS IN ETHIOPIA In the global flower industry, flower exports increased five-fold between 2006 and 2008 In Ethiopia and will catch up to coffee in five years, according to this report. Currently, that means some eight million stems exported monthly, and some 50,000--mostly women--employed in the industry.

DEMAND FOR ORGANIC FLOWERS In the global flower industry, the organic flower business,now at more than $16 million annually, is growing by 50 per cent a year spurred on by the pesticide concerns, particularly in Columbia, the biggest flower exporter next to Holland. Horticulturist, Amy Stewart and author, looks inside the need to be green in our flower production system.

AFRICA'S LAKE NAIVASHA DISRUPTED BY FLOWER GROWER
A recent article in Vanity Fair laments the environmental destruction brought about by the flower growing business, at this lake area in Kenya, with the population jumping from 50,000 of 20 years ago to 250,000 today. Inside the global flower industry,"With few environmental or zoning restrictions, and almost no government controls, Dutch, British and African flower concerns began leasing and buying up prime sections of lakeshore, which they covered with vast plastic hothouses," the article said."The falling water levels, pollution caused by agro chemicals, over-exploitation of fisheries as well as fuel leakage from the farm machinery are taking their toll on the only non-soda lake and its biodiversity," according to Lakenet news.Flower exports have become Kenya's second major foreign exchange earner after tea and tourism, bringing more than $100m into the Kenyan economy each year.

SAN FRANCISCO FLOWER MARKET CUT IN HALF
In early September 2007, it was reported that half of the five-acre San Francisco Flower Market that has been there since the 1950s --the Italian half--is to be sold; the Japanese side will continue. "The planned downsizing is the latest in a decades-long decline of the local cut-flower industry. Bay Area sprawl has pushed out all but the hardiest growers from Santa Rosa to Gilroy. Shipments of roses from Ecuador sell for the same price as locally grown ones, and they arrive with more pleasing heads, florists say. Flower lovers buy their bouquets while shopping for groceries or from the big department stores," according to the article.

INTERNATIONAL FLOWER EXPO; JAPAN Importers and exporters got together in October for the third International Flower Expo in Japan.

DUBAI FLOWER CENTRE Summer visits to Russia for the 13th International Flowers 2006 Exhibition and to India's only 2nd Flora Expo and to Ethiopia to see the growth of flower farms there and then on to the World Cut Flower Congress 2006 in Amesterdam.

WORLD CUT FLOWER CONGRESS 2006 The first world cut flower congress was held in Amersterdam in September.The conference looked at Global Consumer Trends: �living in the present�, �sharing the fun�, �comforting life� and �authenticity.�Rather appropriate for a global flower industry that is in the feel-good, life-is-good business and overlaps into the increased growth in existential products from seminars to travel to books and corporate branding..

CHINA WANTS TO TOP WORLD FLOWER EXPORTS In the global flower industry, China is steaming ahead to outdo other national rose exporters such as Thailand, Ecuador, Kenya because roses have a high cost per-pound and transport fairly easily in comparison to flowers such as carnations and tulips. According to the British report, "Depending on the time of year, Chinese roses cost as little as half the price of roses in other developing countries, excluding air freight."

To compete in the global flower industry, China has 12-lane highways already under construction, the local government offers interest-free loans for greenhouse construction and refrigerated trucks being offered free or at big discounts to farm groups China intends to be at the top of the flower export market. And its monthly average wage of $25 is more competitive than other countries that pay about $100 month, resulting from political activisim.

The reports says that the most serious obstacles that now stand in the way of China's drive to dominate the global cut flower export industry are international concerns about the country's business practices. Western exporters have already started complaining that the country's farmers do not pay royalties when they raise internationally registered varieties of flowers, something which could see Chinese exports blocked.

In addition, concerns have also been expressed about China's violation of international trade rules, which bars the use of government subsidies to help cover the operating costs of exporters.

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