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Extra Features and Video Online FloristsReview.com R E A D O N L I N E 27 In July 2014, the California Cut Flower Commission created Certified American Grown to promote the movement beyond local flower farmers, to direct consumers to regionally and U.S.-grown flowers when local farms don't have botanicals to sell. Prior to the early 1990s—and even earlier—the types of botanicals available to flower shops and consumers were not as vast as they are now, but what was available was largely grown in the U.S. Estimates are that, prior to the rise of commercial flower growing in Central America and South America, around 80 percent of all cut flowers and foliages available for sale in the U.S. were grown in the U.S., with only about 20 percent being imported from other countries. Today, those numbers are reversed, and only 20 percent of the flowers and foliages bought and sold in the U.S. is produced domestically, and growers in California supply 75 percent of those. Certified American Grown has created visibility for America's cut flower and foliage industry and made consumers aware of the "locally grown" options available when purchasing cut flowers. e "locally grown" movement has spread beyond supermarkets and into regional flower wholesalers and among the retail and event floral design community. Many designers have sought to buy locally and domestically, recognizing the value in having the freshest seasonal blooms and greenery and knowing who has grown their botanicals. It's given them a greater sense of purpose in supporting their communities and national economy while enabling them to share with their customers stories about where their products come from. It's created a conversation outside the industry and brought it into consumers' homes. e overall arch of why local and American-grown flowers matter is choice—choice in knowing where our flowers come from and having the ability to choose where our money and resources go, whether domestically or internationally. To aid in creating more accessibility to homegrown blooms, many collectives or cooperatives of flower farmers have been created in communities across the country. Many flower and foliage farmers have responded to requests from their local design communities asking for more variety and volume to supplement what they source from their wholesalers. Stephen Workman, founder of Picklinq Collective in Midvale, Utah, states, "e cornerstones of our collective are quantity, quality and convenience. As a collective, we seek to set a new standard that flower professionals can rely on while improving the quality of life for each farmer by sharing the workload of growing, harvesting and delivering, operating more as one big commercial farm. We are creating reliability for the quantities our florists need, with each farm being able to specialize in only a few crops." Jessica Todd, owner of Cut Flowers by Clear Ridge in Union Bridge, Md., and member of the Monocacy Valley Flower Co-op (MVFC), reiterates the importance of farmers working together. "Collectives allow both the farmers and the florists to work together more cohesively," she shares. "We created MVFC not only to simplify logistics for the farmers and florists but also to create a collaborative community. Working together has allowed us to grow our network of florist customers as well as our production." When designers cannot find seasonal blooms locally, they often struggle to find American-grown blooms from their wholesalers. e options to have access to domestic cut flowers and foliage has improved since 2014, with national wholesalers such as DVFlora, based in Sewell, N.J., and Florabundance, in Carpinteria, Calif.—both of which are Certified American Grown wholesalers— offering their customers options to source farm-fresh

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