In terms of cultivation, roses are the most produced flowers in the world, and because of technical difficulties , such as transport, handling, state-of-the-art growing techniques and more, the production of roses have for many years been a business conducted on land in the northern hemisphere.
However, in recent years, with the progress in manufacturing techniques, and the many new species created to withstand different climatic environments, producers have been able to broaden their cultivation in countries where it was once impossible to grow them in, such as Israel , Kenya and Latin America .
The French production of roses is the leader in France in terms of the ground production field, and in 2001, the census taken reported that the country produced 233,000 stems per year. Since then the French production has diminished greatly. In 2007, the census was that of 190,000 stems, hence a drop of 18.7% in production. Most of the country’s rose production comes from the Occitanie, a south-east region of France, which claims 39% of the production, or one in two roses.
Unfortunately, we can witness a decrease in the areas of production in France due to the pressures of urbanisation, the rise in production costs, and very fierce international competition as well. Furthermore in the Parisian region, there used to be many rose farms, but they were usually family businesses and when it came time to pass the production on to the children to carry on the business, many of them decided to take on a career other than horticulture. The consequence of these decisions has led to the loss of many Parisian rose farms.
So we can infer that with the current economic state of the world, the domination of the Netherlands in flower production, and the trampling on the tradition of family-owned operations, the future of French-rooted rose production is not looking very bright.
