While in Washington, D.C., for the association’s 39th annual Congressional Action Days, SAF President Bill LaFever, PFCI, of the Bill Doran Company in Rockford, Illinois, joined SAF CEO Kate Penn at a small luncheon for Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-Georgia), chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture.
The subcommittee determines how much funding programs within the USDA receive, including the Floriculture and Nursery Research Initiative (FNRI) and the Floriculture Crops Summary — two programs which SAF members lobbied for during CAD.
Penn and LaFever talked at length with Bishop about the value of FNRI and the Floriculture Crops Summary, as well as some of the industry’s challenges, including obtaining duty-free status for Ecuadorian roses under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP).
Read more at the Society of American Florists (Katie Hendrick Vincent)