With so much talk about flowers from Colombia, Ecuador and Canada, we seem to forget that there is still a great deal of production in California. The industry is alive and well there, as well as in Oregon and Washington. But it is a different industry than it was some 10 or 15 years ago. As land prices escalated, the best growing areas along the coast went to housing and commercial development. Uncertainty about ever-changing immigration laws have created havoc with flower growers. Are all their workers legal? Who has false papers? When will INS appear and remove half their workers, legal or illegal?
The Kitayama growing operation has facilities in several places in California and Colorado. They grow some of the best roses in North America and their best production facility was on Half Moon Bay, just southwest of San Francisco. In a conversation, a couple of years ago, Dave Kitayama told me that they were bulldozing that facility, some 20 acres of greenhouses.
I asked if he had gone crazy. No, he said, it’s going into condos. Why, I asked? He said that they had gotten $10 per square foot for the land. That’s $43,000 an acre for the 73-acre property. Would you grow roses there, he asked? And that is what is happening. Twenty years ago, there were more than 150 rose growers in that area. They are nearly all gone
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