Pesticide free Valentine. I'll clean the coffee table.

Many years ago, so long ago she says she never remembers any such thing, Mrs. R. said to me that if I ever brought her flowers she'd think I'd done something wrong. I suspect this was prompted by the fact I wasn't much in the habit of bringing her flowers, but I chose to interpret it more literally and felt excused. Even on Valentine's Day. Even though she is really and truly my special Valentine.

And now I have another excuse:

It's probably the last thing most people think about when buying roses: By the time the bright, velvety flowers reach your valentine, they will have been sprayed, rinsed, and dipped in a battery of potentially lethal chemicals.

Most of the toxic assault takes place in the waterlogged savannah surrounding the capital of Colombia, the world's second-largest cut-flower producer, after the Netherlands. It produces 62 percent of all flowers sold in the United States.

With 110,000 employees -- many of them single mothers -- and annual exports of $1 billion, the industry provides an important alternative to growing coca, the source of cocaine. But these economic gains come at a cost to workers' health and Colombia's environment, consumer advocates say. (Boston Globe)

The problem is bugs. We don't allow Columbian bugs in the US. No illegal arthropods. Cocaine, maybe. But not bugs. The flowers have to be bug free. Of course they don't have to be pesticide free. So Columbian growers, competing with African and Chinese flower exporters, use pesticides and fungicides. With abandon. And without regard for the health of their workers:

Causal links between chemicals and individual illnesses are hard to prove. But the Harvard School of Public Health examined 72 children ages 7-8 in Ecuador whose mothers were exposed to pesticides during pregnancy and found they had developmental delays of up to four years on aptitude tests. "We're finding out these pesticides are more dangerous than we ever thought before and more toxic at lower levels," said Philippe Grandjean, who led [a] 2006 Harvard study.

So, my sweetheart, it's not that I've done something wrong. It's that I'm trying to do something right. Instead of a bouquet, I'll clean my pile of books and papers off the coffee table. Pesticide free.

Happy Valentine's Day.

More like this

More than 175 million roses are sold in the U.S. in the the days leading up to Valentine's Day. From seedling to shipping crates, a cocktail of chemicals protects those blooms. It takes a lot of lethal pesticides to say, "I Love You." Seventy percent of cut flowers sold in the U.S. are imported…
A story on the wires about a paper in the journal Epidemiology this month (November) confirms what other work has shown: those beautiful flowers we buy in American florist shops have an added price attached to them, paid by the children of Central America. Epidemiology is one of the top tier…
by revere, cross-posted at Effect Measure A story on the wires about a paper in the journal Epidemiology this month (November) confirms what other work has shown: those beautiful flowers we buy in American florist shops have an added price attached to them, paid by the children of Central America.…
Such was the tagline of a review of Amy Stewart's new book, "Flower Confidential," as written by George Anders in last weekend's Wall Street Journal. Ms. Stewart, however, is a danger-seeker. In "Flower Confidential" she tests her love by grabbing her reporter's notebook and her passport and…

Happy Valentines Day, first to MRK, then you revere.

I'm fairly convinced also that the pesticides that were used and present in our foods in the 50's has contributed in a large degree to my health, or the lack thereof.
It's taken me years to get the chemicals and pesticides out of the system.

Risky subject however, marijuana is a natural pesticide and repels insects while improving the top soil. It's a shame that it's illegal.

Abel: A vacuum? You make it sound like some kind of a household appliance. What is it?

Whatever it is, nature abhors it. So, we probably shouldn't mess with it.

Besides worrying about pesticides on those roses, perhaps we should also worry about the blood on those flowers, chocolates and diamonds. This Democracy Now section of those gifts of Love is well worth the listen. http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/14/1646235

Reverer I think you gave a wonderful gift. Myself and my partner have given up gift giving. We just try to be nice to each other every day. I hope many will listen to this clip on Democracy Now and either stop giving the blood stained gifts of imperialism and corporatocracy or out vendors who work with the providing people to insure that the exchange is fair (or at least more fair) for the providers of our gifts of love.

... To give on one designated day --
a window bangs shut on an entire
forcefield of chances, connections. ...

Adrienne Rich, From Pierced Darkness