FCI’s founder Debbie Hamrick rewarded with prestigious Silver Carnation Award 2024

Debbie Hamrick, who founded FloraCulture International in 1990 to serve growers, traders, and other stakeholders within global ornamental horticulture, has been rewarded with the 2024 Silver Carnation Award.

Set against a backdrop of applause, Debbie Hamrick took to the stage at the 16th century Palazzo Biscari in Catania on Saturday, 23 November 2024, to accept the award from industry veteran and horticultural journalist Arturo Croci and AIPH president and 2015 Silver Carnation winner Leonardo Capitanio.

From early childhood, Debbie Hamrick loved plants and appreciated being outdoors, especially when she helped her grandparents in their vegetable garden in Robeson, North Carolina.

So, rather unsurprisingly, she initially chose to study forestry but later switched to horticultural science at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS).
After graduating in 1981, Hamrick, blessed with an innate curiosity and love for networking, started her career in journalism. She worked her way up from a staff writer to the editor of GrowerTalks magazine in Chicago, Illinois.

She launched FloraCulture International magazine in November 1990 at the Internationale Bloemenvaktentoonstelling Aalsmeer (International Flower Exhibition Aalsmeer). The idea then was the same as today: to provide growers, traders, and all other green professionals worldwide with a platform for exchanging opinions and knowledge findings. Monthly columns by knowledgeable outside contributors discuss events and other key issues affecting the horticultural industry.

In 2004, Hamrick joined the North Carolina Farm Bureau (NCFB), from which she retired in July. Debbie served as Specialty Crops Director for the past twenty years and helped create policies that benefit farmers. She was passionate and enthusiastic about fruits, vegetables, flowers, bees, aquaculture, and agritourism.

Left to right are Debbie Hamrick, Leonardo Capitanio, and Arturo Croci.

In their 50th year, the Silver Carnation Awards recognise excellence and innovation in business management, floriculture, journalism, public governance, and floral design. Hamrick, who was awarded in the International Journalism Category, was one of nine to receive Silver Carnation honours.

Over the past decades, more than 500 Garofano d’Argento awards have been presented to people who have significantly contributed to the Italian and international flower industry. Among the horticultural award winners are Robert F. Zurel, Wim van Meeuwen, Jan Petiet, Pierre Barandou, Nancy Laws, Egon Galinnis, Jochen Henneke, Jaap Kras, Ron van der Ploeg, Nobel Prize winner Francesco Bruno Gnisci, Ester Nunziata, Marta Pizano, Alicia Namesny, Klara Biza, Karen Tambayong, and Arturo Croci. The latter deserves credit for his tireless efforts and commitment as the Awards’ co-organiser.

The Garofano d’Argento Awards have expanded beyond the floriculture sector in the last few years. Today, award winners can also be found in other sectors of the economy.

As such, this year’s prize winners representing the horticulture industry, Debbie Hamrick, plant genetics Tito Schiva from Bordighera (who, as director of the CRA research centre in San Remo, significantly contributed to Fusarium research projects in Dianthus, achieved breeding breakthroughs in Gerbera and Limonium), and floral designer Ivo Magliola, were humbled to receive the honour and be in the company of an illustrious group of six other prize winners in different categories. These included ethnomusicologist Giuseppe Giordano, writer Giovanni Impastato, Silvia Carrara, director of employer’s organisation Confcommercio Catania, Italian hand gestures ambassador and comedian Luca Filippo Vullo, Gennaro Sicolo, vice president of the industry body for the olive industry COI, and Marianna Cappellani, one of the greatest soprano voices from Sicily (Giarre).

The purpose of the horticultural category of the awards is to welcome industry professionals, from home and abroad, to Sicily to meet growers in person and give them a clear picture of the size, professionality and hospitality of the island’s ornamentals sector.

Award-founder the late Carlo Calì and the organising team truly deserve credit for helping Sicilian businesses to grow and promote the beauty of the island of Sicily.

The organisation of the awards continues in the hands of the aforementioned Associazione, with Carlo’s daughter Carmelita as president, for whom it is a real honour to continue her father’s groundbreaking work.

Sicily remains a European leader in growing Mediterranean plants, with ornamental olive and citrus trees, palm trees, and patio plants taking pride of place. Statistics by Crea and ISTAT rank the largest island in the Mediterranean second and third in the commercial cut flower/potted plant and nursery stock production, accounting for 5.5 per cent and 14 per cent of national production, respectively.

In Southern Italy, Sicily is also the region with the highest concentration of ornamentals growers.

Ornamental horticulture in Sicily is gaining a greater share in the international market due to the island’s benign climate, price advantages, off-season production, intense sunlight and capability for contracted production according to needs.

Sicilian-grown plants are exported across Europe and beyond, so an international trade show as a platform to exchange knowledge and do business is vital for the industry. In the past, several attempts have been made to bring Sicily’s horticultural community together with its industry peers abroad. Industry veterans will remember the Viflor and Viva trade shows in the 1990s and 2000s or, later, the Plantarium Aetnae in Giardini Naxos at the foothills of Mount Etna, Europe’s highest and most active volcano.