Human Flower Project

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Sheep, Sex, Shipping: Valentine’s ‘08

Consumer frenzy, love policing, and labor rights hug the headlines February 14th.

A shopping mall in Bangkok, Thailand, sets the mood for sweethearts
Photo: Chaiwat Subprasom, for Reuters

Hallmark holiday? We prefer to think of Valentine’s as comic, an invitation to lighten up on everybody and see the redbud on bare February branches.
Here’s some floral news confetti.

NEW ZEALAND: Tessa Laird writes that a florist in Wellington is boycotting red roses this Valentine’s Day. Jeanie McCafferty, owner of Next Stop Earth, contends that demand for red roses in February drives prices six times higher than normal—or even tolerable. On an average day in Wellington, a dozen red roses sells for about $10, but with demand so high at Valentine’s, they go for about $65. “You can get a fantastic bunch of flowers from us for that price,” McCafferty says. McCafferty also refuses to deliver flowers to workplaces on Valentines “as it put pressure on her staff and couriers.” She recommends that everybody postpone their flower-buying till March.

Tessa’s reaction: “I like it!” But Tessa, Jeanie, we don’t understand. Without excess, without irrationality, without “stress,” where’s the magic juju? We and hundreds of frantic florists will be interested to hear how Next Stop Earth fares.

At Maridadi flower company in Naivasha, Kenya, a worker loads red
roses from a greenhouse, February 9
Photo: Simon Maina, for AFP

KENYA: Widespread violence after national elections here disrupted flower production—and a whole lot more. In Naivasha, where most of the Kenya’s flower farms are concentrated, homes were burned and people were massacred last month. The “flower farms were relatively untouched but no one showed up to pick the roses and hypericum at Wildfire Flowers the next day, or the day after.” Flower companies hustled to get back in operation, phoning workers to reassure them that the factories were safe, then sending “runners out to homes” to convince workers to return. It appears that long days of flower production and shipping resumed in time to meet heavy demand in Europe. Kenyan companies “have flown flowers to Nairobi or directly to Europe rather than risk impromptu roadblocks. Those that go by road move in daily truck convoys protected by police.”

Sting Ray, be mine!
A special Valentine’s treat at Tokyo’s Sunshine Aquarium
Photo: Itsuo Inouye, for AP

JAPAN: The Sunshine International Aquarium celebrates Valentines all month long. Throughout February, there are special events with a Valentine’s theme.  At left, an aquarium staffer brings an underwater yummy to a ray on February 2 (maybe Ground Hog Day needs renaming).

COLOMBIA: Some 60% of cut flowers sold in the U.S. are imported from Colombia. Just two days ago, eleven religious leaders from the U.S. signed and sent a letter to the president of Dole Fresh Flowers, the largest flower company in Colombia, asking that the corporation permit workers to unionize.

“These workers report that they organized independent unions in order to address concerns about low wages, long hours, high productivity quotas, humiliation by management, and health problems associated with repetitive motion and over-exposure to pesticides,” reads in part the letter to David DeLorenzo, Dole Flowers’ CEO. The religious leaders, brought together by U.S. Labor Education in the Americas Project, urge Dole to permit the latest union effort at its La Fragancia plantation to move forward (Dole closed its Splendor operation last year, where flower workers had been successful in building a union).

INDIA: Fundamentalists, both Hindu and Muslim, have tried to suppress romantic tokens at Valentine’s Day here, but in Bangalore, street vendors of roses have been doing brisk business. A flower seller in Raipur, though, says sales of flowers and cards, too, are just one quarter of what they were in 2007. Religious ethics aren’t to blame.  “Today’s youth, armed with a high disposable income, is buying the most expensive cards and gifts in addition to spending it on eating out,” said an executive of Archies, a card and gift company.

TAIWAN: A survey of women in Taipei, published this week, showed that 70% of Taiwanese men thought their lady friends wanted flowers for Valentine’s Day. However, 92%of the women surveyed “said they would prefer other gifts, such as chocolates or even a marriage proposal.” The research was conducted by an environmental group called Green Sense, which urges the public to buy potted plants instead of cut flowers (marriage offers being out of most people’s price range.)

Sheep nosh on red carnations, flowers that an Israeli embargo
prevented from leaving Gaza
Photo: Reuters

PALESTINE: Flower growers in Gaza have resorted to feeding their carnations to livestock. An Israeli “lockdown” in the area ruled by Hamas has meant that farmers have been stuck with their harvest, unable to export this Valentine’s season. “I apologise to the lovers on the day of their love because I cannot bring flowers to them,” Ziad Hejazi says. “Our flowers have become food for the sheep.”

THAILAND: A poll in Thailand revealed that 1 in four teenagers celebrates Valentine’s Day by having sex (without indicating what rates on an ordinary Thursday might be.) “Police plan to swoop on motels, malls and parks to ensure youths behave themselves on the ‘Day of Love.’”