Challenges and issues for SIB in the Horti & Flower sector:

• Difficulty in determination in constituting what is the ideal living wage for the employees in the flower sector.
• Structural poverty, climate change, repression due to economic crisis, rising food prices and growing inequality have a major implication for rose farms.
• Too many certifications required that maybe time consuming and costly
• There is no minimum standard and tax incentive for re-investing in the community.
• Flower growers encounter challenges in countries where water scarcity is an increasing concern due to the fact that each rose grown consumes 10Kgs of water.
• Lack of incentives to do good and high-energy costs that makes it difficult to set a competitive advantage.

Needs of SIB in this sector:

The horti-floricultural sector engages in daily activities that tend to have a negative impact on their surroundings and therefore in order to promote sustainability some issues that need to be addressed. This sector faces equality, labor rights, empowerment and misuse of resources especially for those at the BoP.

The sector is currently facing sustainability pressures by markets in order to sell their produce at an international level. Therefore, this sector’s industry needs to be sustainable by gaining the right platform for knowledge and labor management in order to become successful and competitive.

Summary of SIB in the sector 

Sustainable flori and horti culture practices assist this sector in business growing responsibly. This is achieved by addressing people’s needs such as providing employees and the local community with welfare in terms of health, education, and equal labour pay. Planet concerns are also addressed by responsible water-use, soil and space use, energy-use, environmental impact, use of fertilizers. On the ‘People’ side of business it requires workers welfare. These are vital aspects for a profitable business especially for a sector that engages with international standards. For more practical examples visit KFC farm members.