“From you, men,” said the little prince, “grow five thousand roses in the same garden … and they don’t find what they’re looking for…”

 

More than 200 million roses are grown each year specifically for Valentine’s Day.
The problem is that their natural blooming season would be from mid-spring through fall.

 

Thus, to meet the commercial needs of this day, they are grown intensively in greenhouses (with great waste of water and the use of various chemicals).

Most of these roses, in addition, come fromAfrica or South America.

In addition to the massive _CO2 emissions to refrigerate the flowers and transport them throughout Europe and North America by airplanes and refrigerated trucks, more and more areas of rainforest are being bulldozed to make way for rose plantations.

Finally, cheap labor is not protected in any way, neither from the point of view of social rights nor from the point of view of health.

 

Worldwide, a rose will sell for an average of 5€ on Valentine’s Day.
Given their utterly inadequate wages, farmworkers—and especially female farmworkers (since most are women)—would need about two weeks to afford a flower they themselves had picked.

 

It is clear that growing these roses is in no way environmentally sustainable, not to mention that they are literally thrown away after a few days.

We invite, therefore, a more conscious choice for Valentine’s Day gifts:

• Favor seasonal flowers such as cyclamens and camellias
• Choose an original, but still gorgeous, bouquet of vegetables
• directly plant a tree like those in our
  Fumagalli Forest
  in collaboration with
  Treedom
  

Contact us HERE to find out how to be part of our project or purchase the
Valentine’s Box
on our e-commerce website.