E-Brief editors have recently received two reader reactions to past E-Brief stories:

Mike Mellano of Mellano & Company in San Luis Rey, Calif., wrote the following in reponse to last week's article about the Colombian peso:

"I’ve been following this ongoing saga that Asocflores has so efficiently presented over the last several months relative to profitability (see the most recent blurb below in the SAF E-Brief).  I fully understand their plight and feel very badly for the individual operators & workers, many who I know, that are suffering through this (as we in California have had to suffer through the similar issues all these years) but I’m sorry to say that my sympathy for the larger macroeconomic picture and overall situation is minimal.  The solution is very simple and one that WF & FSA’s profit guru, Dr. Al Bates, has presented over and over ....  We all need to raise our prices!!  If we don’t, producers will continue to go out of business.  Costs are going up world wide and we can no longer afford to sell our products at the prices that our grandfathers did.  Nor can we look to our governments to create artificial economies to ensure profitability.
 
"It will not benefit the industry as a whole to continue to allow for the consolidation of production to one region.  There is a great benefit to everybody involved (wholesalers, retailers, domestic & offshore producers) to continue to have production balanced domestically and internationally.  Imagine if all of our eggs were in one basket ... wow!!!  I can’t blame Asocoflores for trying to get all they can but we as an industry should strive for balance!!!
 
"Food for thought……"

--Michael A. Mellano
Mellano & Company
San Luis Rey, Calif.

Christine Martindale of Esprit Miami wasn't the only reader to take issue with our coverage of National Rose Month two weeks ago. David Nelson of NELPO in Ecuador also sent in his perspective:

"Your readers may be interested to know that rose production can be highly cyclical, with peaks occurring about every three months. Since many rose growers concentrate production on Valentine's Day, the next cycle peaks at the end of April, just in time for Mother's Day.  However, one month later, we are back in another trough and production is way down.  Here is another graph for you to see the peaks and troughs in the past seven months, taken from USDA figures for weekly imports through Miami. The variation goes from 90 million stems at the end of May to 16 million for the previous week." 
 

--David Nelson 
General Manager, NELPO

--Mary Westbrook
mwestbrook@safnow.org

 

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