While Australian flower growers have suffered devastating losses from wildfires, so far there’s been little impact on the export market. Cooler temperatures, heavy rain and even hail have recently brought some relief to the country.
“At this point, as far as we know, none of our farms have been directly affected by the fires, and we expect business as usual in the upcoming season, beginning as always in June,” said Steve Dionne of Wafex USA, a California-based importer and exporter specializing in international distribution of Australian native cut flowers and plants.
“However, the Australian wildflower industry is much larger and more diverse than just those farms who focus on exports,” Dionne continued. “Our partner company in Australia, Wafex, has provided us reports of at least one farm they trade with that has lost everything: home, farm buildings and equipment, and their entire floral production.” Wafex in Australia has initiated a Gofundme campaign to help the farm rebuild.
The fires have wrought significant damage in every part of the Australian continent, but the very worst impact has been in the densely populated southeast. It’s estimated that 40 percent of the country’s flower farms are located in the southeastern state of Victoria. In the neighboring state of South Australia, 30 percent of flower farms have been lost, according to a report shared with Diana Roy, business manager at Resendiz Brothers Protea Growers in Fallbrook, California and vice-president and communications manager for the International Protea Association. One association member lost 2,500 out of 3,000 protea stems — not due to fire directly, but as a result of smoke and ash from neighboring fires.
Flowers and foliages for the export market are produced in a variety of locations across the continent by a relatively small number of specialized growers, according to Dionne. This wasn’t always the case: “The Australian industry used to be heavily oriented toward export,” he said — mainly to the U.S., Japan, and Europe, which remain the primary export markets, recently joined by China. “Back in the day, a small farmer might be encouraged to jump on the export bandwagon because the economics were so favorable.”
Over time, however, macroeconomic factors reshaped the industry. Today, the Australian dollar is relatively weak and labor costs are among the highest in the floral industry worldwide. Further, Australian growers geared to export have to be invested in very strict protocols to keep insect populations down in the field, along with precise treatments of the product.
While export volumes have declined, they have also stabilized, and those who are committed to the export market do very well: “Throughout the Australia season, we are virtually sold out at all times of everything that comes in,” Dionne reported.
Australian cut-flower exports are dominated by Australian natives, including waxflower, kangaroo paws, flannel flowers, rice flowers, thryptomene, grevillea flowers, and banksias, along with a few domesticated South African flowers like serrurias or blushing bride. Proteas and pincushions are also grown widely in Australia, but rarely exported to the United States, where they face stiff competition from growers in other countries in the Southern Hemisphere.
The season for all of these field-grown crops neatly complements their availability from California. The Australian waxflower harvest, for example, begins in June and ends in late November. California wax starts in early December and goes through May.
Come June, new planting over the past three years may even increase this year’s harvest of Australian native flowers. And Australian foliages (like koala grass, umbrella grass, and steel grass), grown primarily in Queensland, have likewise escaped significant fire damage.
Australia, like California, has long been prone to wildfires. But the nature and extent of this year’s fires are unprecedented. Exacerbated by climate change, the fires have continued to burn over a period of months, consuming forests, homes and businesses over an area as large as 46 million acres—the size of Florida.
The fires have threatened not only homes and human lives but also the ecosystems that gave birth to the native Australian flora. The death toll from the fires includes dozens of human beings, but as many as a billion wild animals.
Many native Australian flowers, including the banksias familiar to many American florists, are adapted to bushfires: a fire can even trigger the release of stored seeds. In November, journalists and biologists noted the resurgence of wildflowers in areas where fires had burned and had been extinguished. The extent of this season’s conflagrations, however, seems likely to alter the Australian landscape radically and perhaps permanently, given the ongoing threat of future fires.
The Australian government has announced that $50 million in Australian dollars will be released to fund a wildlife and habitat recovery effort. Meanwhile, Roy and Dionne both tell stories of how Australians are pulling together to extend assistance to those who need it most.
“Living here in Southern California, and having actually lived through the impact of fires on local flower farms over and over again, we have seen the same thing here that we are now hearing about in Australia,” said Dionne,“people pushing themselves to the limit, trying to secure not only their own property but their neighbor’s property as well. Raising money and preparing to rebuild, pouring resources to help people in need. When you hear nothing but bad news every day, it’s gratifying to remember that this is what humans do.”
Bruce Wright is a contributing writer for the Society of American Florists.
