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Hawaii farmers raising flowers and nursery plants had another disappointing season last year. It wasn’t much different from the prior season but marked a 19-year low for sales, according to a new government report.
Preliminary estimates from the U.S. Department of Agriculture put the value of the state’s floriculture and nursery
products industry at
$67.4 million last year. That was down less than
1 percent from $67.9 million the year before but is 38 percent below the 2007 peak of $109 million.
The previous low was just under $67 million in 1997.
Last year’s slight decline was largely driven by a major drop in sales of landscape plant materials, according to the report that is produced with help from the state Department of Agriculture.
Landscape plant material sales fell 18 percent to $15.2 million last year from $18.6 million the year before. Smaller declines affected orchids, for which sales slipped to $14.5 million last year from $15.1 million the year before, and plant rentals where sales dropped to $3.2 million last year from $4.2 million the year before.
Parts of the industry that grew last year included producers of cut flowers, whose sales rose to $6.3 million last year from $5.4 million the year before, and potted palms, which saw sales rise to $5.6 million last year from $4.7 million the year before.
Eric Tanouye, president of Green Point Nurseries in Hilo, noted last year that part of the reason the industry suffered a downturn several years ago was because big-box retailers decided not to pay farmers for all the plants acquired for store garden departments. Instead, the retailers pay farmers for plants only when consumers buy them and don’t pay for plants that die before they are sold, according to Tanouye.
The USDA report is based on surveys the agency sends to farmers. The agency said there were 970 floriculture and nursery farms operating on 2,695 acres statewide in 2011. Since then the number of farms hasn’t been available, though the number of acres farmed last year was 2,281.
