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Amber Morrison long dreamed of a life in medicine. She was the first in her family to earn a science degree and, for nearly a decade, worked full time as a licensed physician’s assistant who interviewed patients, diagnosed illnesses and helped in surgery.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic struck and everything changed. Morrison, like many other frontline workers, went from being hailed as a hero to being assailed as an enemy. In the video above, she shares how it felt to live through those dark days of being chased to her car and spat upon by misinformed citizens, the stress spurring her to re-evaluate her career and find a new passion.
Morrison bucked a globalized industry by starting a small flower farm that models best practices in pesticide-free farming, plastic-free packaging, fair employment and reducing emissions by catering to a local market.
Today the Bellingham Flower Farm in Washington state sells more than 4,000 bouquets per year. Morrison, who continues to work part time as a physician’s assistant, has ambitious plans to expand her sustainable business.
In making this video over the past several months, we checked in with Morrison and her family several times while learning some concerning facts about the international flower trade.
The farming, transporting and selling of flowers is a $31-billion global industry. Among the top-producing countries are Kenya, Colombia, Ecuador and the Netherlands. Many of the pesticides used on flowers in major flower-producing countries contain compounds banned by the European Union, according to a 2021 report by the journal Environmental Pollution. Working conditions can be harsh. That grim reality in Kenya, for example, has been documented by Journalismfund Europe and BBC.
And then there’s the toll on the climate. According to one estimate, air-shipping buds across continents burns a lot of fossil fuel. In the month before Valentine’s Day alone, planes carrying flowers emit 360,000 tonnes of carbon — equivalent to the output of nearly 84,000 gas-powered vehicles driven for a year.
Countering those harmful trends is important to Morrison, but her motivation runs deeper. The day she hosted a neighbour at her farm for a very special visit brought it all into sharp focus, she explains in our video. Watch the short video at the top of this story to learn why the girl who wanted to work in hospitals when she grew up now considers the joyful act of raising flowers a “medical” achievement just as important.
This video and article run in a section of The Tyee called ‘What Works: The Business of a Healthy Bioregion,’ where you’ll find profiles of people creating the low-carbon, regenerative economy we need from Alaska to central California. Find out more about this project and its funders, Magic Canoe and the Salmon Nation Trust. ![[Tyee]](/design-article.thetyee.ca/ui/img/yellowblob.png){kind=small}
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