The value of Hawaii’s flower and nursery products sector fell 2 percent to $69.6 million in 2011, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service’s Hawaii Field Office.
It was the fourth year in a row that sales of flowers and other nursery products in Hawaii declined after reaching a record high of $108.7 million in 2007, the federal agency said. It also was the lowest amount over a 10-year period.
Dry weather and increasing fog conditions were to blame for some of the growers, the agency said.
The value of cut flowers from Hawaii was just under $6.6 million last year, a 6 percent decline from 2010, and was a little more than half of the $12.2 million that cut flowers generated four years earlier, in 2007. Lei flowers were valued at $2.4 million in 2011, only slightly lower than in 2010 but about half of the $4.7 million generated in 2007.
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