Webinar: NFUO – Flower Power: Sustainable Floriculture is a Blooming Business

This panel will explore the colourful explosion of local, sustainable flower production, novel co-operative marketing methods, and value-added operations that are disrupting the environmentally-disastrous globalized floral supply chains. If you are thinking about adding colour to our communities, contributing to a green economy, and starting your own blooming business, this panel is for you!

Krista Long: Krista is a passionate advocate for family farms, farmland protection, ecologically viable farming practices, and local, equitable food systems. She has over 20 years experience in the not-for-profit sector with a variety of organizations including the Canadian Organic Growers, the Waterloo Region Food System Roundtable, and the Ontario Farmland Trust. She brings her experience in fundraising, policy, research, and program development to her role at the NFU-O.

Theresa Schumilas: Theresa manages Garden Party – a 4 acre cut flower farm outside of Kitchener Waterloo. Before switching to specialty cut flowers in 2012, Theresa operated a certified organic CSA. She switched as a retirement project, but unknowingly found herself in the rapid escalation of the ‘field to vase’ movement in North America. She has sold flowers in multiple channels including: CSA/subscriptions, farmgate, farmers’ markets, weddings/events, wholesale to designers & food hubs, and cut-your-own. In 2023, she is beginning (finally) her retirement and is focusing on selling wholesale to designers and selling specialty cut flower plugs (small plants) to other flower farmers.