An employee cuts flowers inside a greenhouse, ahead of Valentine's Day, at the Plazoleta Flowers farm, in El Rosal, Colombia January 19, 2022. Picture taken January 19, 2022. REUTERS/Luisa Gonzalez
BOGOTA: Colombia's flower producers are readying final shipments of Valentine's Day roses and other blossoms, principally to the United States, amid predictions sales will rise once again as blooms offer a distraction from the ongoing COVID pandemic.
Exports from Colombia, the top flower provider to the United States and the world's second-largest producer after the Netherlands, were up 22% year-on-year in 2021 to 300,000 tonnes.
The shipments of the blooms were worth some $1.73 billion last year and producers estimate the upward trend will continue this year, thanks to a favorable dollar-peso exchange rate, a shorter frost season in producing areas and people continuing to work from home.
"With the pandemic, people staying at home found in flowers an emotional impact, company, help to contend with confinement, something for mental health," said Augusto Solano, the president of the flower exporter association Asocolflores.
"Flowers are food for the soul and the pandemic highlighted that," he said.
Sweethearts buying each other flowers for Valentine's account for some 15% of annual sales for Colombia growers - equivalent to 45,000 tonnes.
"This year we have a 35% increase versus the first year of the pandemic," said Juan Carlos Herrera, head of post-harvest at Plazoleta flower growers, referring to increased sales.
Mother's Day is another major holiday for the industry, which employs some 200,000 people in the Andean country.
