My, What Lovely Flowers. Who Lobbied for Them? WASHINGTON — There was something different about the iris and quince blossoms in the flower arrangements at the state dinner for France at the White House this year: They were grown in the United States, not overseas. The change is a result of pressure on the White House from the determined American cut-flower lobby, which argues that if Michelle Obama is going to showcase locally grown food and American wine, she can do the same for the hundreds of flowers, traditionally changed weekly, in the White House’s state rooms, West Wing and private quarters and, when it is in use, at Camp David. Although at least one Washington-area wholesaler says the White House tries to use American flowers when possible, for several decades the tiny White House flower shop, tucked away on the ground floor, has been heavily dependent on imported blooms. “I was so pleased to see that the dinner included blue and purple irises grown in my own state,” Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from bloom-producing California, wrote in a thank-you note to Mrs. Obama after the French dinner. How American flowers had a star turn in the arrangements — including weeping willow branches from New Jersey and Scotch broom from Virginia that hung from enormous “floral chandeliers” in the dinner tent — is a Washington tale of politics, trade deals and the fruits of chatting up President Obama on Air Force One. (There are cut flowers there, too.) “It took work to make this happen,” said Kathleen Merrigan, a former deputy secretary of agriculture who took on cut flowers as a cause. The White House began using fresh flowers instead of wax ones in the late 1850s, when James Buchanan’s hostess and niece, Harriet Lane, brought the fashion across the Atlantic after a trip to England. The Lincoln White House used camellias grown in the White House orangery. Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Theodore Roosevelt’s daughter, had jasmine and white orchids at her 1906 White House wedding. Jacqueline Kennedy liked French-inspired arrangements, Rosalynn Carter used low-cost forsythia at the dinner celebrating the 1978 Camp David accords, and Nancy Reagan, who was first lady when the United States started using airfreight to import flowers from all over the world, embraced more of everything — peonies, lilies, amaryllis, freesia, hydrangeas. “It was really Mrs. Reagan who set the tone and, I think, changed White House flowers forever,” Nancy Clarke, who was the White House chief florist for 25 years, wrote in “My First Ladies,” her 2011 memoir. “Every first lady since then has continued in the same vein, and we never retreated to the sparse look of the Carter years.” Mrs. Obama likes cymbidium orchids and looser, garden-style flower arrangements, less formal than in previous administrations and sometimes more dramatic. American flower growers’ troubles began in 1991, the year the United States signed free trade agreements with several South American countries, most notably Colombia, which was soon flooding the American market with cheap, duty-free cut flowers. The United States cut-flower industry was devastated, particularly in California, where most American flowers are grown. Kasey Cronquist, the chief executive of the California Cut Flower Commission, said the trade deals forced as many as half of the country’s cut-flower farmers out of business. Before the deals, they had about 75 percent of the domestic market and afterward about 25 percent. Now the majority of flowers sold in the United States arrive in Miami from South American growers, who benefit from the equatorial climate and lower labor costs. Jeffrey Serafini, the purchasing manager of Potomac Floral Wholesale Inc., a company in Silver Spring, Md., that sells flowers to the White House, said that California spray roses cost him 60 percent more than spray roses from South America, although the South American roses have shorter stems. It was not until 2008 that the remaining flower farmers realized they had to lobby in Washington just like the oil companies. They began organizing “fly-ins” for the farmers to fan out across Capitol Hill and plead their case, but they still had little success persuading the public to buy American since country-of-origin labeling for flowers did not exist — and most Americans never thought to ask where the flowers came from. “Everything we tried to do for over a decade was not working,” said Representative Sam Farr, a California Democrat whose Monterey Bay district produces a large portion of the nation’s roses. The turning point came two years ago. When Mr. Farr, once a Peace Corps volunteer in Colombia, was invited in April 2012 to travel with Mr. Obama to a summit meeting in Cartagena, he took full advantage and lobbied the president aboard Air Force One about the plight of cut-flower farmers. Mr. Farr said he thanked the president for serving American food and wine but then told him, “If you want to completely use American, use your own flowers.” The president, he said, “had no idea there is a big cut-flower industry in the country.” On the same flight, Mr. Farr also lobbied Sam Kass, the Obamas’ personal chef. That same year, Ms. Feinstein sent a “Dear Michelle” letter to the first lady: “I write to request your assistance in displaying domestically grown flowers in the White House.” The senator described the sad fate of the cut-flower industry since the trade agreement and signed the letter, “Sincerely, Dianne.” She added a handwritten P.S.: “Hi. Hope you can help us with this. Lots of interest. Best, D.” Another push came from Ms. Merrigan, who had started a popular “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” initiative at the Agriculture Department and last year announced another program, “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Flowers.” Ms. Merrigan, now executive director of the Sustainability Institute at George Washington University, credited Mr. Kass for finally getting the American flowers on the White House tables. “He took the ball and ran with it,” she said. The arrangements at the state dinner were created by Laura Dowling, now the chief floral designer at the White House. Other American cut flowers at the dinner included ornamentals from Florida: alocasia, equisetum, nandina and liriope. The White House, which declined to release its annual flower budget, would not say to what extent it uses American flowers now or will in the future. But Ms. Merrigan said she had been told that the use of American flowers at the state dinner was “not a one-off event.” Source: nytimes
Posted on: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 09:00:00 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015