SALT LAKE CITY — There’s a surprising new star in Utah’s agricultural industry, and it might be sitting in a vase somewhere in your home.

The cut flower business is booming, accounting for about $1.3 million in state tax revenue in 2021, while Utah has gained an average of 30 new flower farms every year since 2018, as the number of farms jumped from 15 to 199 in seven years, according to a new report led by Utah State University researchers .

It’s blossoming because many flowers can’t be shipped into the state because they’re prone to damage, and many of the ones that can are now rising in cost because of tariffs, said Brian Steed, executive director of USU’s Janet Quinny Lawson Institute for Land, Water and Air at Utah State University. Meanwhile, it shows that agriculture can remain pr

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