November 26, 2007 Planning to buy a bouquet of roses for someone you love? If, like 90 percent of the roses sold in the U.S. today, they're imported, they may have a dark history. The workers who grew them might have been child laborers. The blooms might have been exposed to deadly, environment-polluting pesticides. But those scenarios are beginning to change. Move over, fair-trade coffee. Now, there are fair-trade flowers. Flowers produced under certified eco-friendly, fair-trade conditions are in high demand in Europe, but until recently, American sales have been on a much smaller scale, mostly confined to California But this fall, two East Coast supermarket chains, Giant Food Stores and Ukrop’s, began carrying fair-trade flowers. Giant Food Stores spokeswoman Tracy Pawelski said sales so far have exceeded expectations. "It's growing, just like 'natural' and 'organic' 10 years ago," she said. Increasing demand for environmentally responsible, socially conscious products is pressuring flower farms worldwide. The Ecuadorian flower industry, for example, is struggling to clean up its act after years of harsh criticism. The fair-trade-certified Malima flower farm outside of Cuenca, Ecuador, looks like a college campus. It includes a day-care center, a medical center and a gleaming cafeteria. Under its certification, by the German-based Flower Label Program, workers must wear protective gear. Chemical use has been cut back and the most toxic chemicals are banned. Malima's glassy new corporate offices are set in among the flower fields, instead of back in the city as the old ones were. "I open the window, and the field is right there," said company Vice President Marcelo Crespo. "So, if the chemicals are killing people, I will be perhaps the first," he said with a trace of sarcasm. Malima sells most of its flowers to Europe. So far, Ecuadorian growers who want to sell to the United States haven’t felt as much market pressure to change their practices, but that could change if fair-trade flowers catch on in the U.S. the way fair-trade products such as coffee have. Crespo said he sees certified flowers as the future of the Ecuadorian industry, which exports nearly two-thirds of its flowers to the U.S. "It's not only a situation where you believe you should do this, it's a must," he said. Distributed by Internet Broadcasting. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed |
