Over 150 million fresh cut flowers will be sold in Canada for Valentine’s Day. That’s 4.5 flowers for each person living in Canada! As you set out to buy flowers this year, consider where they are coming from and how they are grown.

The majority of fresh cut flowers you see in our stores have been shipped in and/or trucked in for thousands of kilometres. Then, on top of that they are full of pesticides and other nasty chemicals, which the flower workers breathe day in and day out. Sometimes the workers are surrounded by these nasty chemicals for endless hours since they often work long hard hours for very little money.

I am not going to suggest that you don’t buy flowers or even that you don’t buy flowers that have been shipped in. I don’t want my words to fall on deaf ears and in the end there is nothing wrong with beautiful fair flowers.

So what I am asking? Or better yet what should you be asking?

Ask your florist if they sell fair-trade flowers and where the flowers are coming from. Ask what types of pesticides are used. If they don’t know, let them know that you are interested or ask if they can find out for you. If they are in the know, make sure you buy toxic free fair flowers for your love. Let them know that you are interested in supporting florists who support fair-trade and local producers.

Supporting your local florist - who is educated on the issues and who does their best to support a fresh cut flower industry - is good for everyone.

You can find a fair-trade florist in your area in our directory under Gifts->Flowers.

Tags: fair flowers, fair-trade flowers, Gifts, organic flowers, valentine's day

This entry was posted on Friday, January 29th, 2010 at 11:01 am and is filed under Gifts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.