On the Closure of Sun Valley Floral Farms
Have you heard?
In a striking blow to the the American grown flowers movement, we learned recently that the largest cut flower producer in the US has announced sweeping layoffs of about 700 employees at two of it large farms in California, effective in just a few short weeks. Sun Valley Floral Farms cites rising electrical costs, the inability to earn energy subsidies that are granted to manufactures in California, and the increasing pressure of cheap imported products as the motivating factors in the company’s decision.
It’s an almost unfathomable development for our industry. Yet here we are. Sun Valley grew from humble beginnings in the late 1960s, survived the free trade agreements that led to many flower farm closures in the US and became the larger grower of cut flowers with a collection of farms specializing in different species. If you know of the lily “stargazer” you know Sun Valley. It is one of their own hybrids.
So, what does this closure mean for the American floral industry?
To start, we fear it means that the gap between very cheap, imported flowers and US grown local flowers will widen even further. Sun Valley offered an intermediary, a true wholesale operation based right here in the US. Without this option for flowers, consumers can expect to see even more flowers from abroad on supermarket shelves and in the hands of US florists.
Will someone “save” Sun Valley?
We hope so. We all need more local flowers, not less. And when small growers can’t meet the demands of their communities, many of them go to regional or national sources for back up. The American grown flower movement has momentum and has been working hard to overcome some pretty crazy subsidies that were offered to other countries in agreements that only hurt US growers. These agreements limited the kinds of flowers that can be produced in the US and made it easy for foreign entities to import flowers. They rewarded foreign farms for investing in flower production. Meanwhile, countless US flower farms threw in the towel, unable to compete with prices from markets where labor was not protected and chemicals were not banned. While we cannot personally speculate about the future of the expansive Sun Valley facilities in Aracta and Oxnard that are on the chopping block, rumors in The Netherlands suggest a Columbian buyer may sweep in and scoop it up, either eliminating future competition or increasing the foreign stake in US flowers.
What does the Sun Valley closure mean for products like tulips and lilies?
For our situation as small growers, it will be interesting to see how the market responds to a closure as significant as Sun Valley if an agreement can’t be made to keep it open. On one hand, the closure could bring some relief to the bulb industry. Sun Valley is one the largest producers of tulips and lilies in the US. They produce over 80 million stems of tulips a year. So what happens to all the bulbs that are set aside annually for Sun Valley in The Netherlands? Will we see a dip in bulb prices that have only been climbing steeper and steeper the last few years? On a recent trip to Holland, bulb suppliers acknowledged the potential loss and their concerns for Sun Valley’s departure from the marketplace.
Only time will tell.
