United States imports

The U.S., along with Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Italy, France, and Japan are the major world consumer markets for cut flowers. Asia, particularly China, is expected to become the largest consumer market in the world within the next few decades. In the U.S. alone, more than $13 billion retail worth of flowers are sold annually. Although the U.S. itself produces flowers, over half of the flowers sold are imported (Table 2).

The Campaign will raise awareness in the US about labor rights violations and health and safety problems in the cut flower industry in Ecuador and Colombia, and seek improvements through action in the US and Latin America.

A survey of 8000 workers in plantations near Bogotá found that workers were exposed to 127 different pesticides,
Two-thirds of Colombian and Ecuadorian flower workers suffer from work-related health problems, including headaches, nausea, impaired vision, conjunctivitis, rashes, asthma, stillbirths, miscarriages, congenital malformations and respiratory and neurological problems.

In Ecuador, child labor is also a problem in the flower industry, and pesticide exposure affects children more severely than adults. The ILO estimates that 20% of the 60,000 Ecuadorian flower workers are children.