Ceres Fair Food: A circular sort of love

2 Mar

6 February, 2023.

Valentines Day is a pretty odd day – its Roman origins include the execution of two Christian martyrs both named Valentine, a lot of communal nudity, compulsory heavy drinking and a public spanking ritual thought to improve participants’ fertility.

For a millennium and a half Valentines Day carried on its debauched way until Shakespeare added a bit of romance in the 15th century but it wasn’t until Hallmark Cards did a Valentines rebrand that it morphed into what we know it as today.

The American public lapped it up and got really stuck in buying greeting cards, flowers and chocolates.

For a long time though here in Australia we didn’t take the whole thing too seriously.

Until somewhere along the way we did….in a big way. So much so that now each year we fly around 10 million red roses into the country to prove our love to each other.

Now you’d think that since we’ve fully embraced Valentines Day local rose growers would be experiencing an unprecedented boom for their blooms?

Well think again – a bit more than a decade ago Australia had 300 rose growers but today we’re down to around thirty.

Why? It’s all about the dollars – rose growing is labour intensive and countries like Kenya, Peru & Colombia have cheap labour and yeah, you know the rest…

Anna Jabour, CEO from the Flower Industry Australia and a florist herself, laments that it’s nearly impossible for Australian rose producers to compete against cheap imports.

Then there are the sprays to keep the roses looking perfect. So many sprays.

Flowers aren’t considered food, so there’s no limit to the amount of pesticides that can be sprayed on them.

Studies conducted in Belgium found florists were being exposed to residues from up to 100 different active substances (pesticides) – it’s one reason flowers have been dubbed “the poisonous gift”.

And to make things worse before imported flowers are sold in Australia they have to be dipped in glyphosate (aka RoundUp) to prevent plant diseases entering the country.

The reaction from Australian flower growers has been a burgeoning natural flower farming movement. Their attitude embraces imperfection and their methods are guided by nature.

Anna from 302 Flowers says their spray-free farming is influenced by their dependence on their bees, “We feed the plants, the plants feed the bees, the bees feed us.”

Which is exactly the sort of circular local love CERES is inviting people to celebrate and be a part of this Valentines Day.

You can find Anna’s amazing flowers here in the webshop and look out for CERES’ and other farmers’ spray-free flowers coming online later in the week.

Have a great week

Chris