Should you consider your impact on the environment when you’re rushing home this evening, hoping to gain a few late brownie points? Grumpy Old Man asks the question.
A bouquet of roses has an ecological footprint of 20 m2 which is the same as driving a car for 20 km. On top of that a lot of fertilizers and herbicides are used. Even cultivating the flowers in e.g. Kenya and transporting them to e.g. Belgium will have a lower footprint.
But the associations involved in looking at the issue ask yout not to boycott flowers since the life and working conditions developing countries are at stake. Instead:
- buy flowers which last longer. Perfect examples are amaryllis, chrysant and the flamingo flower. Narcissus, iris and tulips don’t last that long
- flowering plants or bulbs in a pot are a perfect alternative
- one or a couple of flowers can be as nice as a huge bouquet
- go for Happy Flowers. These are:
- flowers with a fair trade label (in Belgium Max Havelaar roses)
- organic seasonal flowers from the organic shop
- local produce with labels like Flower Label Program (FLP) (in German speaking countries only) and Fair Flowers and Plants (FFP).
photo courtesy of peasap.
I usually cook a nice seafood dinner for my better half on Valentines, the idea is to avoid the flower cliché and the queues of idiots who only go to the florist once a year.
So this year I bought some oysters, scallops, leeks and asparagus, and some gambas too. Back home, I figured out it was a real orgy -a food miles orgy that was. Apart from the wine I brought back from France (little more foodmiles) and the oysters that came from Ireland, everything had an exotic provenance.
The Sainsbury’s SOrganic asparagus came from Thailand (now, the SO were cheaper than normal ones but is that not a stretch of the mind than putting an organic label on air-freighted veggies???), the the baby leeks from Egypt (where else?), the Scallops from the US (confirmed my preconception that american seafood isn’t the best by far), the Gambas were fished somewhere in the Indian ocean.
What’s wrong with the world?
You tell me, Ludo. Don’t you read the provenance labels *before* you buy food?
Rob Armstrong’s pictures have appeared in publications such as Birds & Blooms Magazine and the Jackson Hole Explorer Magazine (including the current 2009 cover photo).
flowers photographs