Flower power

Roses for North America are largely grown in Colombia, Latin America's largest flower exporter. Some farms are certified as being environmentally sound and having good labour practices. Most are not. (Fernando Vergara/Associated Press)

We love to "say it with flowers," as the slogan goes from florists around the world. In fact, there's a veritable cacophony of bouquets changing hands out there. Canadians, Americans, Europeans and others are giving each other roses, carnations and chrysanthemums — the big three of cut flowers — like never before.

Mothers' Day, wedding anniversaries, birthdays and, of course, the biggie, Valentine's Day: these are occasions that we've always celebrated, but during the 1990s, we turned to flowers as a gift of choice at an ever-increasing pace.

One reason was cost. Flowers became cheaper as production shifted to dozens of low-wage countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. These countries have been piling into the industry, switching from food crops to vast fields of gently swaying rosebuds or endless rows of chrysanthemums. Another was the relative ease of sending a bouquet by using the internet to order and pay. By the end of the last decade, the cut flower business was growing by 10 per cent a year.

The global trade in ornamental blossoms is now worth more than $40 billion Cdn annually. Every single day, 20 million cut flowers bound for the world's markets are sold at the centre of the flower industry: auction houses in the Dutch town of Aalsmeer.

'Tulip mania' bankrupts Dutch

Of course, floral gifts are nothing new. Ancient religious rituals from the Middle East to India and China involved offerings of flowers to various deities. Kings and conquerors were presented with lavish bouquets, perhaps in hope of blunting wrath with a waft of heavenly scent, a kaleidoscope of colour. Throughout history, agrarian cultures have valued flowers as ornamental plants.

But until a peculiar craze in the Netherlands more than 400 years ago, there was no large-scale floral industry. Then, in the late 1500s, tulips came to Europe from the decorative gardens of the Ottoman Empire.

They became very popular among the wealthy commercial elite of what was then called the United Provinces, or Holland. Families competed to grow the most beautiful tulips and bred new strains in greenhouses. Dutch mercantilism was already well developed and a flourishing trade in bulbs sprung up.

At the height of the tulip boom, a single bulb of a coveted variety could cost nearly 10 times the average annual income of a middle-class Dutch family. Tulips were traded for tracts of land. There was rampant speculation in bulbs and tulips were traded furiously on stock exchanges across Holland. Traders developed futures contracts, selling bulbs that were still in the ground, flowers that hadn't bloomed yet. Prices climbed and what's now called 'tulip-mania' took hold.

It all came crashing down in February of 1637 when tulip traders panicked and began trying to sell their bulb contracts. The price of bulbs crashed. Families who measured their wealth in tulips became paupers overnight. Thousands of people were ruined.

Chastened perhaps, but no less enthusiastic about the economic potential of the flower business, the Netherlands is still the largest flower trading nation in the world.

Half of the global cut flower business goes through Dutch auction houses or involves firms with headquarters in Holland. Go to many of the vast flower farms of Colombia, Ecuador, Malaysia or India and you'll find a Dutch connection.

Even Canada's domestic flower business has extensive ties to the Netherlands, with many firms run by people of Dutch descent.

Millions of cut flowers from Latin America pass through U.S. customs every day. The demand for roses, carnations and more exotic varieties is booming across North America. (J. Pat Carter/Associated Press)

No bed of roses

The current global flower trade may not be as financially precarious as 17th-century tulip trading in Holland, but environmental and labour activists say it's not all a bed of roses.

One of the problems is that the most popular flowers attract a host of pests and fungal diseases when they're grown in the tropics. All too often, according to Nora Ferm of the International Labour Rights Fund in Washington, D.C., pesticides and other agricultural chemicals are applied to flower fields by local workers who lack proper training and protective equipment.

Ferm spends up to half of each year in Latin America encouraging union organization and environmental protection for the workers on flower farms. It's an uphill battle, she says.

"You encounter skin problems, respiratory problems, then there are long-term toxicity issues," Ferm told CBC News Online.

"Most [flower workers] are women and they're poorly paid and not allowed to join unions. Some even have to take pregnancy tests to get a job because employers don't want to pay for maternity leave."

One problem is that North Americans don't know that the flowers they buy for special occasions are often produced by workers in less-than-optimal conditions, according to Amy Stewart, the author of Flower Confidential: The Good, the Bad and the Beautiful in the Business of Flowers.

"How do we encourage good farming practices if we don't have information or access to international standards and certifications?" Stewart said. "Luckily that's starting to change."

The shift stems from the arrival of two international certification processes in the North American flower business. Europeans have long been able to buy organically grown flower, or roses from farms with good labour practices — and that option is finally being offered in North America. Transfair, the organization that governs "Fairtrade" labelling, is to expand its work into the flower trade in 2007. At the same time, a California organization has begun offering a certificate of good farming practices called "VeriFlora."

Canadian growers slow off the mark

Sierra Eco, a firm based in Lachine, Que., uses the VeriFlora process and has been offering its customers flowers from green farms with approved labour practices for several years now.

But Sierra Eco co-founder Tom Leckman said his fellow Canadian flower importers have been slow to follow suit.

"Sustainability just isn't an issue here yet," he told CBC Radio's The Current. "We do thirty-five tonnes of cut flowers a week yet [other Canadian] growers just don't see the opportunity."

Irwin Smith of the industry organization, Flowers Canada Growers, said Canadian firms find it tough to compete with cheap imports from developing countries, and growers are worried about the future of their businesses.

"We produce an excellent product," Smith said, "but our prices are rising and the U.S. dollar is dropping, pushing up our costs in our largest export market. Our industry is experiencing some stress right now."

He said Canadian flower growers already observe high labour and environmental standards, suggesting the way ahead may be to promote that fact to Canadian consumers. At present, locally grown flowers are rarely identified as such by florists.

One thing's for sure — the current craze for saying it with flowers isn't likely to go the way of tulip-mania in 17th-century Holland. But North Americans will soon be able to soothe their social consciences by sending a labour-friendly, green bouquet of crimson roses.