On February 14th, the traditional Western Valentine’s Day is approaching, and many people will express their love with flowers. To meet the highest demand for fresh flowers in the year, flower merchants and farmers in Colombia, South America, are bustling packaging flowers and air-freighting them to various parts of the world.
Before Valentine’s Day each year, flower farms in Colombia are extremely busy, working day and night to harvest, select, and package flowers to meet the strong demand from over a hundred countries worldwide. In fact, many local flower farmers started preparing for this warm and romantic holiday as early as six months ago.
Colombia is the world’s second largest flower exporting country after the Netherlands, with over 3,000 registered flower farms mainly concentrated in the vicinity of the capital, Bogota. Thanks to its advantageous geographical location and unique natural conditions, Colombia has achieved excellent quality in its flowers. The flowers here have longer stems, bigger buds, brighter colors, and a wide variety, each exuding exotic charm, thus loved by people from all over the world.
The high demand for Colombian flowers has naturally created a huge number of job opportunities locally. The flower industry creates no less than 200,000 job positions annually, with the majority of beneficiaries being rural women. Especially some young girls are willing to take up this temporary job during holidays, because they believe it is a job that can convey love.
According to the data from the Association of Colombian Flower Exporters (Asocolflores) in 2024, the largest exported flower species during Valentine’s Day are roses, followed by carnations, chrysanthemums, hydrangeas, and lilies. Approximately 76% of these flowers are exported to the United States, followed by Russia, Japan, and the United Kingdom.
Below are the beautiful flowers grown at Ayura Flowers farm in Sopo, Bogota, and the busy scenes of the employees at work: