Phew! The worst is behind us! A breath of hope is spreading this spring among the florist wholesalers in Africa and Latin America. After a year of nightmare where they had to destroy their sto ...

Traveling flowers

Audio 02:28

A breath of hope is spreading this spring among florist wholesalers in Africa and Latin America (Photo illustration).

By: Marina Mielczarek

9 mins

Phew!

The worst is behind us!

A breath of hope is spreading this spring among the florist wholesalers in Africa and Latin America.

After a year of nightmare in which they had to destroy their stocks, exporters of fresh flowers are seeing the Covid-19 crisis receding.

Reopening of borders, resumption of air traffic, the market is blossoming again.

But at what cost ?

Behind this burst of enthusiasm hides reality.

More expensive transport and customers asking for flowers from home!

Publicity

They all still have goose bumps!

Pay double for plane tickets, and sometimes even triple.

Whether they are Dutch, Indian, Kenyan, Ethiopian, Chinese or South American, all producers of fresh flowers are back in service.

But with a heavy heart.

Competition is fierce on the few flights available.

And the bigger ones do the best.

Cut flowers in baggage compartments

Their flowers traveling mainly on passenger flights (and not conventional freight) the cost of transport, in any case, as long as air traffic has not resumed, will remain much more expensive.

Too expensive.

From $ 1.90 per kilo, it rose to $ 3 per kilo on flights between Ethiopia or Kenya to Europe where Africans export nearly a third of their production.

Millions of roses destroyed in compost

In addition, the very idea of reliving spring like last year, destroying millions of fresh roses, which left in 2020 in a huge compost ... No, that's out of the question!

If the big companies can afford it, the smaller flower farms will continue to suffer.

More than any global crisis, the Covid crisis will transform the market.

Flowers like ready-to-wear

Clothes and fresh flowers are all the same!

Depending on the year, tastes and colors change.

Fashions that can change quickly.

Just one example, the carnation that has disappeared from flower exchanges is regaining public interest.

Responsiveness and adaptation are the qualities of a good exporting producer.

Flowers, divas like no other

Attention fragile!

Unlike many other commodities, transporting cut flowers is difficult.

Stop drafts!

The stems like the petals require delicacy in handling.

Storage in the hold, especially when there is not much space left, requires specific packaging and positions.

As for possible bacteria and viruses, here again, the procedures are known and customs controls are well respected.

By boat, the sleeping beauties

From now on, to lower costs, exporters will have recourse to maritime transport.

Admittedly, the journey is slower, but significantly cheaper.

However, for Sylvie Mamias, Secretary General of the International Flower Trade Association, the sea is only an alternative, not a solution.

As surprising as it may seem, yes, she says, it is possible today to put plants to sleep to make them cross the oceans for up to three weeks of travel.

Conservation techniques (cold or new enveloping materials) make it possible to safeguard the plant quality.

Colombia is undoubtedly the country that has developed this programmed sleep the most.

However, for very fragile flowers like roses, it does not work.

However, for climate protection and cost reduction, it is a prospect.

We are going to make the African public want cut flowers

»Clément Tuzely, director of the Kenya Flower Growers Council.

April 2021

In Europe, the Netherlands remains the flagship country for tulips and cut flowers.

Elsewhere in the world, India and China also produce flowers.

But it is above all Latin America (Ecuador, Colombia) and Africa (Ethiopia and Kenya) which remain important regions of production and international export.

1% of the GDP of the Kenyan economy

So this crisis?

For Clément Tuzely, director of the National Council of Fresh Flower Producers in Kenya, it is far from over.

Between two meetings and non-stop phone calls, the businessman gives us his opinion on the reopening of borders and the gradual resumption of air traffic:

“

I will say that with the help of the government

,” he explains, “

we are trying to save the market.
The crisis is far from over!
The stake is to lower the prices on the available planes.
This pandemic has made us aware of our great fragility.
She pushed me to make decisions.
We will now have to remain international by developing a more local market.
Give the taste of cut flowers to the African consumer.
The sector in Africa is still non-existent.

The customer asks for eco-transport

Almost half a million people work in flower production in Kenya.

The country will now focus on transport by boat.

The economic advantage is not the only reason.

Consumers, especially in Europe, are now ready to pay a little more expensive flowers if the transport is less polluting than the plane.

The slow flower

In the continuity of this new ecological concern, the Slow Flowers movement (slower and more ecological flower trade) was born in Europe.

In the wake of Slow Food (more climate-friendly food), Slow Flowers is all the more encouraged by this global epidemic.

His supporters campaign for closer flower farms with well-defined agricultural products.

Maybe the wrong idea

But the equation is not as simple as it looks.

Growing tulips in the Netherlands would actually pollute more than exporting from Africa!

Particularly with the habit of European producers of increasing the number of round trips of their goods between factories for sanitary treatments.

Another reason, all in all quite logical: in Europe it freezes and the sun is less present than in Africa.

In the rose greenhouses of Ethiopia and Kenya, there is no need for heat lamps.

The opportunity for much better trips

Again, in the future, studies will contradict each other.

But they will have the merit of bringing out new techniques and new talents to prevent new crises.

Advertising asks us: Say it with flowers!

It's a safe bet that the next spring, Valentine's Day or Mother's Day, will offer much better transport!

Transport chronicle - Traveling flowers