Floral Industry Puts Issues Front and Center on Capitol Hill




What can you do in fifteen minutes? Multiply that quarter hour times 102 entrepreneurs visiting nearly 140 legislative offices in one day, and you can put floriculture’s most important issues — access to capital, immigration reform, funding for floriculture research and better deductions for charitable donations —smack in the center of Congress’ radar.

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Those are the issues that teams of growers, wholesalers, suppliers and retailers from 25 states boned up on and took to Capitol Hill, during SAF’s 33rd Annual Congressional Action Days (CAD), held March 11 and 12. The combined and coordinated effort put floral industry needs into direct human (i.e. “constituent”) perspective for the denizens of Capitol Hill.“CAD is critically important,” Marvin Miller, AAF, of Ball Horticultural Company in West Chicago, Ill.



Chair of SAF’s government relations committee, Miller, who’s been attending CAD for 25 years, told attendees at the opening breakfast, “Seeing the results may take a while. But the results are often significant, long-term and benefit the entire industry.





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