Say it with organic flowers

This Valentine’s Day, express your love for the planet with a gift of organically grown and fairly traded flowers for the sweetheart in your life. Conventionally cultivated commercial flowers produced in countries such as Colombia and Ecuador, from which Canada sources most of its imported blooms, are sprayed with highly toxic pesticides, fungicides and fumigants - 20% of which are banned in North America for being extremely carcinogenic. Talk about tainted love.

The economies, the environment and the day-to-day lives of flower farm workers in Columbia and Ecuador have been greatly affected by the cut-flower industry. Workers have been exposed to dangerous chemicals, resulting in skin infections, an increased miscarriage rate, neurological disease, reproductive problems, serious respiratory diseases and birth defects in children whose mothers were employed on these farms. And because many growers dispose of contaminated water and flower waste directly into streams and fields around the farms, surrounding villages are also affected. Water is often polluted and livestock eat contaminated grass and feed, which means contamination of the food supply chain.

The ecological cost of shipping flowers makes them even more environmentally unfriendly. Road, sea and air transport creates water and air pollution and contributes to climate change by generating greenhouse gases.

You might have thought you were doing the right thing by arriving home with a fresh bouquet under your arm, but the time they reach your beloved, those fresh-smelling blossoms will have left a trail of toxins and petroleum.

Luckily, there are a few alternatives:

EcoFlora
EcoFlora is a Toronto-based online florist offering exclusively ecologically grown flowers. Their arrangements arrive in containers made in Canada or the U.S. or that were fairly traded from other regions. Cut flowers are wrapped in reusable paper and compostable cellophane.

Sierra Eco
Sierra Eco is committed to improving and assuring fair living standards for flower farm workers and their families by ensuring worker safety, wage security, education and health care. Farms that carry the Sierra Eco label secure funds for housing, education and recreational programs. In order to maintain healthy soils and the availability of clean water supplies, flowers with the Sierra Eco seal come from farms that practice environmentally responsible flower growing methods, recycling and waste disposal. In Toronto, Hatcher Florist at 5455 Yonge Street carries Sierra Eco approved blooms.

My Luscious Backyard
This Toronto flower network grows over 50 kinds of organic flowers and foliage in plots across the city using organic farming methods without the use of damaging pesticides, herbicides and synthetic fertilizers. And because they’re grown locally, their bouquets generate minimal greenhouse gas emissions in transportation to homes and businesses from May to October.

Consider presenting a single stem instead of a dozen to make a dramatic impression and reduce your environmental impact. Having trouble finding just the right blossom for your Valentine? Opt for a potted indoor plant. Even when grown conventionally, a plant is preferable for the years of pleasure it can provide.