Behind the scenes of the billion-dollar flower trade | Foreign Correspondent

Where in the World do your flowers come from? Have you ever wondered where in the world your flowers come from? Or what it takes to get them to you? Our flowers go everywhere around the world. We supply over 50 countries. When it comes to the business of selling blooms, the Netherlands is the global epicentre. It's the trading centre of the world for flowers and everyone is bringing flowers to the auction. But after centuries on top, the multibillion-dollar industry is grappling with the climate crisis. MAN: In the last 10 years, a lot of companies stopped already with growing roses because it's too expensive. To provide customers like you or me with flowers year-round, another major player has emerged. I'm headed to Kenya in East Africa, one of the world's biggest flower producers. Kenya's flower industry is now a billion-dollar behemoth. But as it grows, so too does the divide between the powerful and the powerless. Do you think people are afraid to speak out about what happens on flower farms? Yeah, they are afraid of the companies. They are untouchable. A woman's sweat has gone into producing that rose. Buyers have an ultimate role and they have huge leverage to ensure that the sector is improved. We've tracked international supply chains from the Netherlands to here, in Kenya, because, often, what we're buying has a hidden environmental and human price. We're asking the question, "What is the real cost of a rose?" Amsterdam, Netherlands, The Home of the Flower trade. I'm in the Netherlands, where, for centuries, generations of growers have created the world's most sought-after stems. These green, low-lying plains make the perfect flower fields. The iconic canals were the old trade routes. Today, most of the blooms are grown in high-tech greenhouses that use artificial heat and light to create the perfect growing conditions. But it's energy-intensive and expensive. I'm about to meet a rose farmer whose family has been in the trade for generations. Marc Sassen is trying to do things differently. Hello! Hello, Marc. It's so nice to meet you, finally. Yeah, nice to meet you. Welcome. Wow. His greenhouse is full of roses that aren't found anywhere else. Every day, another one is blooming, so every day is different. And when we see something special, of a nice colour, of a good long roses, we put the stick. So, I really love this rose, right here. It's really unique. Yes. What's so special about this rose? It's blooming like... a little bit like a garden rose. So, put a stick on it. This... And this... This the Isabelle. I can call this the Isabella rose? Yes, you can call it now whatever you want. Fantastic. Lucky me. Very beautiful. Perfect. A few years ago, Marc scaled back the lights and heat in most of his greenhouses. Now he only grows in the spring and summer, when it's warm. The biggest concern is the price of the energy. When energy is rising, it's almost not possible to...to, uh... ..to grow roses here anymore, I think. With a smaller selling season, he needs to make more money for every stem. I want to grow roses are unique and I want to be the only one with that roses, so I don't want competitors. So, to make the most unique rose in the world, you have to breed them yourself. You have to breed them yourself. Most of Marc's roses have been sold directly to wholesalers. They'll end up as far away as the US and Australia. But what's left over is heading to an auction house 10 minutes down the road. And Marc has no idea if they'll sell for the price he needs. The Global Flower Auction The day starts early in the flower business and this auction house just outside Amsterdam is its global epicentre. Flower-growing happens slowly but selling has to move quickly. $8 billion worth of plants from around the world are traded in this temperature-controlled warehouse each year. They'll all be sold today at a virtual auction. It's the trading centre of the world for flowers and everyone is bringing flowers to the auction. Auctioneer Erik Wassenaar is setting the price for hundreds of varieties of roses. The buyers need to stop the clock at the right time to lock in their bid. All the world is looking at the clock pricing, what's happening today, and a lot of growers, buyers, use that price as a benchmark for the pricing for their flowers. But the industry knows it cannot continue to operate as it has. Albert Haasnoot is the head of sustainability here and it's his job to help reduce emissions. More and more, we get questions from consumers, but also from trade companies. "How much gas do you use? "How much plastic do you use? What do you do with water?" Many of the roses auctioned off have been air-freighted in from Kenya, often sent abroad again to their new buyers, which means some of these products have a significant carbon footprint. The auction house is trying to introduce a new system which will estimate the environmental footprint of each product. Are there some products that are better for the environment than others? It's very hard to see what is really...is sustainable. So, you have good examples in the Netherlands but you have also excellent examples within Kenya, for instance. Back on the stock floor, Marc Sassen has something to celebrate. Hello. Hello. Good morning. Good morning. I love your ride. Oh, come on. Sit. I jump in? It's not so big. Thank you. Thank you. Where are we going? Just drive. OK. We're heading into his company's auction warehouse to see how much his roses sold for. This is your place. This is my place. Let's have a look. Yes. Welcome in our fridge. Wow, look at the colours we've got in here. Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it? So, the El Patron. It was the most expensive rose this day. Wow. And how much would you get for a single stem? About $2.50 today. Is that a lot higher than...? Yes. It's twice as much as the normal roses. What do you think people like about the El Patron? I think it's about the shape and it's new and it's different. It's time to send off the stock that's been purchased and let it begin the next leg of its journey. How African Flowers go Global Marc's roses are bought by buyers in this room. They all work for a Dutch wholesaler that purchases stems for florists all over the world. One of the buyers, Arjan Glasbergen, explains it's a choice between premium Dutch blooms and cheaper African-grown roses. I can see lots of spinning red dots. Can you explain what we're seeing on this screen? ARJAN GLASBERGEN: Yeah, the red dots. That's the auction starts. When someone pushed the button, then the red dot stops, to get the right flowers, that's more important. Because some flowers, they have only one chance. I can see there's a really big difference in price. I can see a Kenyan rose going for about 15 cents. I can see a Dutch rose going for about 80 cents. Why is this such a big difference in price? Some roses, for example, from Ethiopia or Kenya, are more smaller. The price is also a little bit lower and other varieties of roses from Holland, for example, are more popular... Right. ..and they have always higher prices. Today, the majority of the wholesalers' stock is bought direct from farms in an attempt to cut costs and shorten supply chains. So, most of the flowers that were purchased by the buyers at the auction this morning end up here, as well as all of the flowers that were bought directly from the farms. And it's really cold, it's two degrees, to make sure that they all stay fresh. Frank Oudwater is one of the managers here who thinks the industry CAN shrink its environmental footprint. FRANK OUDWATER: We've recently opened a hub, a distribution centre, in Nairobi, Kenya. From there out, we supply direct to the florists, so to bring the florist closer to the farm. The Dutch industry has become reliant on African-grown roses to fulfil orders and maintain supply during Europe's winter. There is big production in Kenya. The farms are way, way bigger. It's more like factory farms than the more delicate farms we have in Holland. Every day, flowers are flown all over the world. A lot of the time, they're in freight planes, but sometimes, they're in the cargo store of commercial flights, like the one I'm about to catch. I'm on my way to see Kenya's blooming industry with my own eyes. Lake Naivasha, the heart of Kenyan flowers (BIRDS CHIRP AND HOOT) The first rays of light hit the still waters of Lake Naivasha. This is the lifeblood of Kenya's flower-growing region, also known for its spectacular wildlife. (ANIMALS GRUNT AND CHITTER) MAN: It's rare to get the baby hippos out. Really? It's only morning hours and maybe evening hours. John Gitonga works on the lake every day as a tour guide. So, we are in Lake Naivasha. You can see how beautiful and calm is. You have to enjoy everything around the lake. How often do you see giraffes? Hmm... That's a daily. Daily? Yeah. And I can see lots of greenhouses around the lake. Is there a lot of farming in this area? Most of them are surrounding us, even on the...just on my side here, you can see a flower farm. Others, we'll see them on the other side. Inside wildfire flowers The billion-dollar industry is now Kenya's second biggest export. Foreign investment and multinational companies have turned this quiet area into Kenya's flower-growing capital. Wildfire Flowers is one of the farms close to the banks of Lake Naivasha. Hi, Peter. Morning. Isabella. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Welcome to Wildfire Flowers. Thank you. Let's go and have a look. Austrian-born Peter Szapary started the business, capitalising on Kenya's prime growing conditions. What is this variety that we're looking at here? This is a lovely white variety which is called Athena. And we export it into all our markets. Today, his roses end up on supermarket shelves around the world. You effectively get European summer 10 months of the year, so we've got a continuous vegetation period. And here, in Naivasha, we've got a huge additional advantage that we've got a very, very big water source, which is Lake Naivasha, and we have got water rights to this freshwater lake. Peter is on a mission to create a carbon-neutral rose. Three years ago, he allowed for his farm's environmental practices and emissions to be audited. We were completely in the dark, and that's one of the reasons we did it. Yeah. And the other reason why I did it is because I didn't want to sit at a dinner party where somebody tells me, "Well, actually, you flower producers, "it's completely unsustainable what you do in terms of environment "because of your carbon emissions." So, we thought, "OK, well, I'm gonna put that to the test." He's installed solar, makes natural fertiliser and no longer ploughs, which Peter says helped cut emissions by about 40%. My vision is to see a carbon-neutral product separated from the general flowers you can buy. "This is different, this is carbon-neutral," say, on the shelf of a supermarket. The local environmental impact of flower growing Locals who live and work on the lake have their own concerns about the industry's environmental impacts. After his morning of tours, John Gitonga meets his wife, Rhoda, on the lake's small public beach. He has many frustrations with some of the farms. Some... Not all. In fact, we've got very good companies, flower farms, the best in the world. But we also have the poor and the bad ones that drain their waste from the farms, killing fish and also destroying other animals that we depend on, like the birds, the marabou stork, the kingfishers. They will die out of poison. So, for me, I think some companies are very pathetic. Do you think people are afraid to speak out about what happens on flower farms? Yeah, they are. They are. 'Cause they'll speak out, yes, but who will hear you? You are reporting a powerful person. So, it'll be like, "You are the one with the problem." Yeah. They are afraid of the companies, if I may say so. They are untouchable. What is it like to work in the flower farms (ROOSTER CROWS) Many flower-farm workers in Kenya share the same morning routine as Mary Nieri. She is among the 70% of the industry's workforce who are women. Women nowadays have lot of problems. Maybe you have been married. Your marriage is broken. The husband abandons you. Then you can only get to the flower farms and find food for your children. When I started the job, I had just come from my husband's house, so I had that hardship. Her job made it possible to educate her seven children but she's had to do it on a monthly salary of about $115 Australian. That's lower than Kenya's minimum wage. Though the money is too small, but we...we just do it. Why did you want to work at the flower farm? Because I had no otherwise. I had no otherwise. I had no money to start a business. So, the best thing was to go there. Yeah. But I'm proud of it. Although, it is sometimes hard. Mary joins the throngs of flower workers who are on the move before dawn. Many people in this town are employed by the farms. It's just past 6am here in Naivasha town. And already, this place is buzzing with activity. There are buses coming and going. There are queues of people everywhere. And that's because this is where people come every morning to be collected for their jobs at the flower farm. Back at Peter's farm, mornings are the busiest time of the day. His workers have to move quickly, once an order comes in. Buds hibernating in cold storage must be quality-checked, graded and packed all within 30 minutes, so they don't start to open. How flowers get their prices and the impact on the sellers and workers Peter, the roses we can see in here, what price are you expecting to get for those? We have pre-agreed prices. They are basically a commodity. And for a 40-centimetre, we will get something in the region of eight cents, eight euro cents, per stem. Eight cents doesn't sound like very much. Why is it so low? If a supermarket wants to sell, they are very resistant to change their price. If it's a... Normally, you sell a bunch of 10, say. They'd rather pull one stem out that you only sell nine, but keep the price. So, they're not interested in changing these pricepoints. We are the bottom feeder because in the whole value chain, it all gets pushed down to us. Most of the labour here is handled by Peter's 700 locally employed workers. How much might one of your flower workers earn? Can I... Can you just stop? That's a...that's a very sensitive one, you know? Peter wouldn't tell us on the record how much his employees make. I'm sure there is other farms and one gets rumours that other farms pay a lot less. They don't give their workers permanent contracts. All our workers here are on permanent contracts, all year round. And it gives stability. We try to be one big family. Kenyas Human Rights investigations into the flower industry Some farms, like Peter's, help fund schools and services, but Kenya's Human Rights Commission is investigating the exploitation of women in the industry. WOMAN: There has been an intention to improve the conditions of workers in the sector, but the scale of abuse is still so much that it overshadows the good, the little good, that the few foreigners are putting efforts around. Mary Kambo specialises in labour rights and economic justice at the Commission. I've seen payslips where women are taking home less than $5 in a month. So, if this woman is subjected to conditions that force them to give in to sexual demands by senior managers, supervisors, most of them have given in. Not because it's consented, but because they're desperate, and because there's also a huge power imbalance in the sector. In your mind, what is the real cost of a rose? Interesting question. The real cost of a rose? I think that... You know, a woman's sweat has gone into producing that rose. So, the cost of production, I cannot put it in numbers, but I can say that there is the life of a human being. Their labour rights have to be protected. And that's, for me, the real cost of growing those roses. The toll of working in Kenyas flower farms Esther is one of these women and her body is paying the price. The single mother is living with a chronic health condition while trying to provide for her family. ESTHER: I have to buy food. I have to pay the school fees and the other needs. So, it is very, very difficult to me 'cause, you see, the salary, it's little. You have so many things, so many bills you have to pay. Esther says she makes about $60 Australian a month, after tax and deductions. At her local shop, she's running up more debt. Right now, I have a debt of this house. Like three or four months. I'll pay half, half I buy medicine. So, I have been surviving there like that. Ups and down. Esther is forced to choose between buying her asthma medication or paying rent. She says her serious breathing troubles started after working at the farm. She blames the cold room and pesticides for triggering her attacks. We planted the flowers and there, they exposed me to the...to the chemicals. You see, like the morning, I have to go to the hospital before I go to job. Then I inhale, I'm OK, then I go to the job. The illness makes looking after her children difficult. She's been moved to the farm's kitchen on doctor's orders, but is still suffering. I have a pain in my chest. I cannot do anything in my house. I cannot cook for my kids, cannot wash even myself. So, it has been... Sometimes it's difficult. I cannot use the inhaler to...to remove that pain. Some women say its impossible to live on a flower farm wage Some women say it's impossible to live on a flower farm wage. WOMAN: So, you are just like a slaver. Slavery. This woman is in her early 20s. She asked us not to use her name. She works at one of the big farms, but to support her family, she's taken up another job - one that she can do after her shift finishes. My mum, she's a very poor lady, and she's a single parent. I don't have a dad and I'm first born, so I can't manage with 5,000. That's why I usually go and sell my body. She says her flower farm salary is about 5,000 Kenyan shillings after deductions, or about $60 Australian a month. Sex work can be more lucrative but it's difficult and sometimes dangerous. Are there lots of other women like you, who work at the flower farm and then go and do this work at night? Should you still buy flowers? It's only a short drive to the country's vibrant capital, but it feels a world away. The conveyor belts of flower exports at Nairobi's airport doesn't slow down. This industry has transformed the country's economy. Every day, freshly packed flowers are flown out in these special cold-air cargo containers, creating carbon emissions. Someone in Australia might think, "Well, should I be buying Kenyan roses at all?" What do you think? I will not tell them not to buy our flowers, because we have more than half a million people depending on the flower sector. So, go out and buy the flowers, but ensure that you're sourcing from a market that is ethical and sustainable. These flowers are now ready to be shipped all over the world and they might end up in shops near us. By that time, it will be hard to know how far they've travelled or who picked them. But maybe it's our job as consumers to start asking those questions. Captions by Red Bee Media Copyright Australian Broadcasting Corporation