Safely past the guy with the revolver! Rose farms are huge sprawling affairs in Ecuador. The smells in the greenhouses are a mixture of growing vegetation and warm plastic, plus an agricultural input or two in the form of fertilizer and fungicide. They are very familiar smells to those within the grower community. Outside the greenhouses the sunlight bounces off hectares of plastic, snow melt water gurgles through the properties via eucalyptus lined irrigation canals, and everywhere there is fresh mown grass, manicured pathways, and landscaping, along with perhaps a soccer field complete with rustic stadium or even a bull ring!
Roses travel from greenhouses to processing sheds and cold storage via intricate networks of aerial runways. Gondolas of fresh cut roses hum down these cables, their first taste of transportation as they embark on trips that will take them to far flung destinations and markets. This journey will end with buyers that have no sense of the smell or sight of these places and people whose labors make it possible. Likewise I often wonder if the people on the farms have any thought of where the product travels to and what it means to those final recipients.
Many of the roses from where I am standing will eventually be sold and in a matter of a few days be re-sold, one stem at a time, to someone in Russia. This is premium product and referred to as “Russian” or “Open Cut.” The nomenclature thus given is because the dictates of that extra fussy market determine how long the rosebud is allowed to develop prior to cutting. They are cut as well matured flowers that are certain to bloom open, unlike many less expensive roses that are cut tight… and might well stay closed. This is an intricate process and takes a great deal of skill in the timing calls of the grower and the harvester, as well as an inordinate amount of patience and faith on those wrestling with profit and loss. Imagine the temptations of turning your production space over more often. You have to be very sure of getting the price for taking roses such as these all the way to 110 days and more. That is just three crop cycles a year and all the while you can gaze downhill and see farms producing on six cycles a year. Of note here is that this is the “cut” that flowerbud.com contracts for in all its rose varieties. Hence no $29.99 a dozen plus baby’s breath from me!
Today’s farm, ‘Valle Verde,’ is a fine example of such a place. It must be seen as a brave venture in today’s climate as it is a large and brand new farm. Purpose built on virgin territory that took huge developmental efforts to bring it into being. It is constructed on multiple terraces and is just undergoing the finishing touches. I walk through the processing sheds and coolers where construction crews are still a month away from finishing and the impending influx of Roses from the hundreds of thousands of beautiful, vigorous and healthy plants that are quietly pushing their first buds upwards.
The interiors of the greenhouses are geometrically precise. Roses in arrow-straight rows, their support structures based on uniform eucalyptus stakes placed as precisely as war grave markers and all the guide wires are of equal tautness. I can feel the vigor and vitality emanating from these plants. I know you think I am daft but after thirty years of seeing the good, the bad, and the ugly in the global flower markets, the really good stands out, in no small measure due to its rarity. If you stand still for just a moment in the hushed silence that marks one of these houses, the plants talk to you as they flex glossy, dark green bodies into productivity. I use that word advisedly.
Fausto, complete with large-brimmed straw hat, guides me through his domain. Not even that large hat can keep his obvious pride under wraps. Names, numbers, dates spill out for every question I can think to ask as we gaze over these huge expanses of roses, happy on their hillside. This surely is the fun part of having a rose farm. Alberto, equally prideful of the venture, has that slightly more pensive look of one regarding it from the substantive capital infusion point of view while Monica has that eyes wide open look of one charged with selling it all and answering to everyone.
On the way to view the ‘Valle Verde’ “corporate offices” I chide them that their processing/packing/cooling facility is not nearly large enough for the coming crops. Granted it is of vast size but I have yet to visit a farm that built large enough facilities to cope with production. While the plants always get sufficient attention and space the people/processing/packing equation always seems to be a little off. ‘Valle Verde’ HQ immediately lets you know that Alberto and Fausto have their priorities right. As the investments pour into the production facilities their offices are what might become an heirloom collection of shacks formed of plywood, corrugated tin, plastic, cardboard and likely the odd fertilizer sack. Inside this amazing structure are desks loaded with everything the modern office needs. Phones connect to Quito and internet connections reach out to the world. On one wall are suspended the blue prints of the real HQ to come, complete with medical and dental clinics for employees along with dining, washing and changing facilities. With Alberto’s passion for soccer there will be a soccer stadium at some point I am sure.
Tucked away up a quiet valley, accessed via a bridge made from vast cants of lumber sawn from a giant Eucalypt that had come to maturity on the property and with Cayembe’s pristine white peak as guardian this farm, this enterprise has a very good feeling. I trust that someday you will open a Flowerbud box of roses and when seeing the logo ‘Valle Verde’ on the wrapping around the rosebuds you will be able to visualize a remote and high green valley with brown accents, a snow capped peak, and the ever so gentle and careful Ecuadorian hands that select, touch, cut, grade, and pack perfectly every single unblemished bud. Your enjoyment may be all the more for your understanding of this place and its people.
To the author,
I give him an A+ for selecting such wondeful wording in the description of Valle Verde, your clients will forever be grateful for such beautiful roses.
And I am also thankful for your friendship.
Take care,
AC
Excellent report.