The floriculture industry is currently midway through its busiest quarter: bulbs are being planted, delivery mechanisms tweaked and marketing campaigns buffed as growers prepare for Christmas, then Valentine’s Day, then – the most lucrative of all – Mother’s Day. But while the trade relies on these consumerist displays of affection as much as ever, a battle is intensifying for the very heart of the business.

For half a millennium this heart has beaten in the Netherlands, the world’s biggest flora exporter. According to the agency Bloemenbureau Holland, the country accounted for 52% of all flowers sold globally in 2006. To put this in context, the second-largest exporter was Columbia with an 11% market share, followed by Ecuador and Kenya with around 5% each.

Up to 30% of all Dutch flora exports are actually repackaged exotica from East Africa, the Middle East and South America, however; they are rerouted through the Netherlands, which boasts centuries of trading expertise and transport links to Germany, France and the UK. Around 60% of the global flower trade passes through Dutch flower auctions. The largest, Bloemenveiling Aalsmeer, draws more than 5,400 growers daily and takes place in the world’s largest commercial building.

Floriculture is worth around €5bn a year to the Dutch economy. The Product Board for Horticulture says the country’s flower exports were worth €6.28bn in 2006, with cut flowers accounting for €3.2bn and potted and garden plants making up €1.8bn. In the horticultural industry, it is not only the export of plant-based products that is an important earner; a further €2.5bn is raked in by breeding companies, producers, tissue culture companies, traders and the like. The high-tech greenhouse construction and logistics industries account for more than €1bn.

Not only has the focus of flower production gradually shifted to the shadows of the Andes and lush slithers of east Africa, areas that offer unrivalled cultivation conditions and cheap labour; globalisation and soaring energy costs are also starting to gnaw away at the Netherlands’ dominance of the industry.

For instance, China has been investing billions of yuan in a bid to become the world’s second-biggest flower producer and exporter within 15 years, having started exporting cheap roses to the US last November, according to the Flower Association, a government agency. Five hundred new types of rose will be unveiled for the 2008 Olympic Games. In January Bangalore opened its International Flower Auction Centre, with others planned for Mumbai and Kolkata as India’s flower export market is on course to exceed $1bn (€710m) by 2010.

According to Bloemenbureau Holland, Dutch cut flower exports were worth €3.23bn in 2006, up a mere 2.9% from €3.14bn in 2005 after annual growth of 4% for the past three years. Dutch firms supplied 3.8% fewer cut flowers to the auctions in 2006, according to the auction body Vereniging van Bloemenveilingen in Nederland, while imported supplies decreased by 2%. Bloemenveiling Aalsmeer and the world’s second-biggest flower auctioneer, FloraHolland, have just given the green light to merge in a bid to tackle the “international developments” that threaten their supremacy. The merged company, which will control 30% of the European market, will begin trading on 1 January, 2008.