Humphrey School News on-the-go

Greta Friedmann-Sanchez adds to discussion on the ethics of flowers.

"The industry is self-regulated, so it's up to the owner and up to his ethics what he does," says Greta Friedemann-Sanchez, a University of Minnesota anthropologist and author of the book Assembling Flowers and Cultivating Homes: Labor and Gender in Colombia. "There are facilities that have enough washrooms, bathrooms, lockers, cafeterias, a subsidized lunch workers can purchase, recycle all organic material, trying to do biological control of pests and fungus, and follow labor laws. And then there are firms that don't do any of those things."

Smithsonian
February 1, 2011