Dear “Earth Talk”: What environmental and
health issues, if any, are associated with cut flowers?
— Olivia Clark, Seattle, Wash.
More than half of all cut flowers sold in the United
States at florists and supermarket chains are imported. Holland is the
largest source; several Latin American countries, including Colombia and
Ecuador, vie for second place. Because flowers are not food, the U.S.
Department of Agriculture doesn’t regulate them or inspect them for
pesticide residues. Nonetheless, U.S. Customs will reject a whole shipment
of flowers if they contain a single insect, and consumers for the most part
will reject any bunch that is less than perfect.
It is no surprise, then, that cut flowers are one of
the world’s most pesticide-intensive crops. Flower workers, of whom
there are roughly 200,000 worldwide, pay the heaviest price. In Ecuador,
the second-largest exporter to the U.S., 60 percent of workers suffer from
headaches, nausea, blurred vision, or fatigue, according to a 1999 study by
the International Labor Organization. Doctors in Cayambe, the rose capital
of Ecuador, confirm these findings and add birth defects, sterility, and
miscarriages to the list.
Flower exporters use a variety of fertilizers,
insecticides, and fumigants, including the highly toxic methyl bromide,
which is also known to harm the Earth’s protective ozone layer. Even
in the United States, flowers are grown with large amounts of pesticides in
closed greenhouse environments, resulting in compromised worker health and
flowers laden with pesticide residues. California roses, for example, in a
1997 Environmental Working Group study, were found to have 1,000 times the
level of cancer-causing pesticides of comparable food products.
In 2001, Gerald Prolman, who founded Made in Nature,
the first distributor of organic produce to supermarket chains, launched
Organic Bouquet with the idea of selling organic flowers over the Internet.
Now Organic Bouquet flowers are available at Whole Foods, Wild Oats, Trader
Joe’s, and other natural-foods chains, as well as on the
company’s Web site.
Organic Bouquet uses organic flower growers primarily
in the western United States but also in Ecuador and Colombia, where
Prolman discovered that, because of the prohibitive cost of pesticides and
artificial fertilizers, a few growers had developed natural alternatives
and were still producing perfect flowers. “They were using organic
techniques without even knowing it,” he recalls.
Two other online purveyors of organic flowers are
Manic Organics of Lawrenceville, Ga., which specializes in roses, and
Seabreeze Organic Farm in San Diego. But one need not take to the Internet
and wait for UPS to deliver to “say it with organic flowers.”
Organic, pesticide-free flowers may be bought in season from your local
farmers’ market. If you can’t find one, check the Web site of
Local Harvest, which maintains a nationwide directory. You can buy from the
company’s online store, which helps small farms find markets for
their products beyond their local areas, but their site’s search
engine can help you establish direct contact with small farms in your local
area.
For more information: Organic Bouquet, 877-899-2468,
www.organicbouquet.com; Manic Organics Flowers, 678-377-8258,
www.manicorganicsflowers.com; SeaBreeze Organic Farm, 858-481-0209,
www.seabreezed.com; Local Harvest, 831-475-8150,
www.localharvest.org/organic-flowers.jsp.
Send questions to “Earth Talk” in care of
E/The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881, or e-mailearthtalk@emagazine.com.
This article appears in May 19-25, 2005.
