ask a farmer
Conversations, insights, tips and more.
Michael Mellano poses in The Flower Fields, an agritourism site his company runs in San Diego County.
Holidays and weddings A large portion of cut flower sales is concentrated around a few days such as Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day. Industry experts even make market forecasts based on the day of the week Feb. 14 falls on. (Tuesdays are good; Saturdays not so much.) Mellano estimates two-thirds of his sales happen between January and June, which includes those holidays as well as Easter and the June wedding season.
Cultivating cut flowers Michael Mellano enjoys helping put a smile on people’s faces
COLOMBIA
ECUADOR
Story by Caleb Hampton • Photo by Suzanne Mellano
Michael Mellano’s family has grown cut flowers in California for almost a century. “My grandfather started our business in 1925 when he immigrated from Italy,” Mellano says. The business started out in the Santa Cruz area before moving south to the Los Angeles basin. Since 1968, Mellano & Co. has grown cut flowers in and around Oceanside in San Diego County. “I’ve been involved in the business as far back as I can remember,” he says. After earning a Ph.D. in plant pathology from the University of California, Riverside, Mellano joined the family business in 1988. A former president of the San Diego County Farm Bureau, he has served as the CEO of Mellano & Co. since 2017. The company employs about 250 people to grow dozens of different crops for the cut flower and cut foliage market on 400 acres. It also operates an agritourism site called The Flower Fields in Carlsbad. “The ability to continue to provide livelihoods for our employees and to produce a product that puts a smile on people’s faces are the things that keep us going,” Mellano says.
Global competition In the 1990s, the U.S. Congress eliminated tariffs on agricultural
products from four South American nations to encourage legitimate export businesses and create jobs outside the drug trade. As a result, cut flowers in Ecuador and Colombia flourished, and flower farms in California, unable to compete with the lower-priced imports, suffered. “We have to compete in what is essentially a global marketplace,” Mellano says.
38
January/February 2024
Powered by FlippingBook