On a tour of the family-run, cut flower operation Oregon Flowers last week, U.S. Rep. Andrea Salinas gained insights on the challenges and opportunities of the domestic flower growing industry that she can take back to Capitol Hill.
Salinas toured the Aurora, Oregon company’s greenhouses and facilities and learned about the business and flower growing process. She also listened as company President and CEO Martin Meskers, AAF, and Vice President Tyler Meskers, talked about policies impacting domestic growers, such as labor and environmental regulations and a new tax.
“Oregon has a good name for growing agricultural products, so there’s a lot of good,” Tyler Meskers says, adding that there are several state regulations going into effect that are negatively impacting growers, and that legislators, like Salinas, need to understand those challenges.
The July 1 visit was arranged by the Society of American Florists as part of its CAD 365 advocacy strategy, which also included a fly-in this spring. (Interested in hosting a lawmaker at your business? Email SAF).
Meskers says the walk-and-talk tour of his family’s greenhouses, established in 1985 after the family immigrated from Holland six years prior, enabled the group to discuss how to work together to make the domestic flower industry as strong as it can be.
One big issue for Oregon growers is the costly administrative burden that goes along with regulations, even those that growers are already doing voluntarily. For instance, Oregon Flowers provides employees with shade, paid breaks and water, but the state requirement for these practices comes with a pile of time-consuming paperwork.
Other issues discussed by the Meskers and Rep. Salinas were the corporate activity tax and the Oregon agriculture overtime law.
The tax puts Oregon growers at a disadvantage, Meskers says, because if businesses pass it on to their customers it makes Oregon flowers less competitive.
The overtime law lowers the number of hours employees work before earning overtime pay. Oregon Flowers has always paid overtime on Sunday and holidays, Meskers says, but the lower overtime requirement will present additional costs and potential negative impacts such as cutting employee hours and, as a result, reduced production.
Meskers encourages other floral professionals to advocate for legislation that benefits domestic flower growers and to have conversations with their lawmakers so they better understand constituents’ concerns and keep them in mind when they vote on issues.
“I have four kids myself, and they may have interest in wanting to go into the business like I did,” Meskers says. “I want to make sure that there’s a domestic flower industry for them, just like there was for myself.”
Roxy Eckberg is a contributing writer for the Society of American Florists.
