Some of my more cynical friends might have claimed that I went to the French Riviera just so I could strut around in my deck shoes with a cardigan tied around my neck in Antibes.
In fact, the favourable climate of both rivieras is ideal for flower cultivation which is what mainly interested me. Both the Italian and French riviera have made use of this for the cultivation of flowers but for different ends. And now as globalization takes hold the Italian cut flower industry is seemingly in terminal decline whilst the French perfume industry goes from strength to strength. The revenue of the perfume industry in Grasse was estimated at 1.32 billion dollars in 2010 whilst the man who showed me round the museum of flowers in San Remo indicated that the cut flower industry of the Italian side was worth about one tenth of its value in the 1980s.
Such is it’s decline that the modern purpose built flower market just outside San Remo has a large area used for children to play volleyball instead of selling cut flowers. What is the reason for this? Well like all industries in the developed world you need to add value to whatever product you sell. If it is just cut flowers in an area of high land prices and labour costs then it makes more sense to either find a new industry or relocate to somewhere with similarly favourable weather conditions but lower costs like Kenya or Colombia. As I have already said this is a trend being repeated in all industries not just horticulture and I for one find it very sad.
But you have to admire the French in Grasse or Burgundy say. Such is their skill in creating perfume or wine that they have added an incredible amount of value to simple agricultural products such as lavender or grapes. In Grasse such has been the success of the industry there that, like a sort of silicon valley for IT products, other big perfume companies from Switzerland and the USA have got offices there. And remember this is in a changing world where very few natural perfume essences are still sourced in Grasse.
If we were to have a bit of blue skies thinking here in Britain it would be nice to think of ways to use what remains of our own horticultural and agricultural know-how in tandem with our favourable climate to create more products that can power our own economy. So lets raise a wee dram to a little bit of blue skies thinking from the balmy Mediterranean…
A gardener out of this world 