Gearing up for the Peak Daffodil season of Easter, Hundreds of pickers labour in the fields, hand-picking Daffodil stems and forming bunches for domestic and global export markets. back-breaking work. Brilliant yellow harbingers of Spring, Cornwall harvests an estimated 80% of the daffodils that are sold as cut flowers globally,
Cornwall harvests in the region of 900 million stems of daffodils annually, along with 15,000 tonnes of bulbs. As a non-destructive, perennial crop, the process of picking is a highly selective, manual process in which mechanisation is not an option. This means the daffodil industry in Cornwall is 100% reliant on manual labour, and is highly influenced by the weather, requiring dynamic management and close attention. Early periods of prolonged warm weather can bring on the blooms all at once and disrupt and devalue the crop. Some 1,700 pickers are required each spring and as such a huge organisational effort is required to meet demand. Good money can be earned by experienced and necessarily tough piece workers. 2025 has been sufficiently cool to aid the crop progress this year.