How a graduate student’s term paper transformed an ancient lakebed into the world’s Valentine’s Day garden

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The Lakebed That Became a Garden

In the pre-dawn darkness of the Bogotá savanna, 2,650 meters above sea level and just north of the equator, María Elena Rodríguez moves through rows of carnations with the efficiency of someone who has done this for thirty years. Her hands, weathered but precise, select blooms at their perfect moment—neither too tight nor too open. Around her, 319 other workers mirror her movements along conveyor belts that stretch the length of football fields, an assembly line of beauty that will, within hours, be airborne.

This high plateau, where the air is thin and the Andes rise like cathedral walls to the east, was once entirely underwater. One hundred thousand years ago, Lake Humboldt filled this basin, fed by glacial melt and mountain streams. When the water finally drained away, it left behind something extraordinary: dense, clay-rich soil layered with organic sediment, crisscrossed by rivers and wetlands, blessed with twelve hours of sunlight every single day of the year.

The indigenous Muisca people, who occupied these lands long before Spanish conquistadors arrived in 1537, called it Muyquytá. They grew potatoes and quinoa, mined emeralds from the mountains, and extracted salt from rocks—work done exclusively by women, earning them the name “The Salt People.” They never could have imagined that centuries later, this savanna would become synonymous with a different kind of commodity: flowers that would travel to the far corners of the earth, borne on silver wings.

The transformation began with a college paper.

The Student Who Changed Everything

In 1967, David Cheever was a graduate student in horticulture at Colorado State University, staring at a blank page. His assignment: identify an agricultural opportunity in a developing country. Cheever, who had traveled through Colombia, remembered the Bogotá savanna—that peculiar high plateau with its spring-like climate and proximity to both the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea.

“Bogotá, Colombia as a Cut-Flower Exporter for World Markets,” he titled his term paper. The logic was elegant: the savanna sat at 2,600 meters, creating cool nights and warm days perfect for flower cultivation. The equatorial location meant consistent daylight year-round, eliminating the need for expensive artificial lighting that plagued Dutch greenhouses. Land was cheap, labor was available, and—crucially—Bogotá’s El Dorado International Airport was just three hours from Miami, closer to the East Coast than California, then America’s flower capital.

Cheever didn’t just write the paper. He lived it. By 1969, he and three partners had invested twenty-five thousand dollars each to launch Floramérica, applying assembly-line techniques to flower production near Bogotá’s airport. They started with carnations—sturdy flowers that could withstand the journey to American markets.

“We did our first planting in October of 1969, for Mother’s Day 1970,” Cheever, now seventy-two and retired in Medellín, recalls. “And we hit it right on the money.”

It’s not often that a global industry springs from a school assignment, but within five years, at least ten more companies were operating on the savanna, exporting sixteen million dollars in cut flowers to the United States. By 1991, the World Bank called it “a textbook story of how a market economy works.”

Today, Colombia is the world’s second-largest flower exporter after the Netherlands, commanding over 70 percent of the U.S. market. If you buy flowers at a supermarket, big-box store, or airport kiosk in America, they almost certainly came from this ancient lakebed in the Colombian Andes.

The Geography of Perfection

Standing on the savanna, you understand immediately why flowers thrive here. The plateau spreads for 4,250 square kilometers, a patchwork of greenhouses that from the air resembles an Escher drawing—geometric patterns of white plastic stretching to the horizons. To the east, the Eastern Hills rise in green folds, their peaks often wrapped in cloud. The Sumapaz mountains anchor the south, while western hills frame the opposite edge.

The Bogotá River, 375 kilometers long, cuts diagonally across the savanna from northeast to southwest, gathering tributaries—the Subachoque, Bojacá, Fucha, Soacha, Tunjuelo—as it flows toward the dramatic Tequendama Falls, where the plateau’s water plunges into the abyss.

This is montane savanna, a rare high-altitude grassland ecosystem. The temperature hovers between 7 and 17 degrees Celsius year-round, cool enough to slow flower metabolism and produce robust blooms but warm enough for constant growth. The ancient lakebed soils are naturally fertile, rich in minerals. Wetlands and tributaries provide abundant water, though this abundance has proven both blessing and curse.

Seventy-one percent of Colombia’s flower farms cluster in Cundinamarca department, which encompasses the Bogotá savanna. Another 27 percent operate in Antioquia, near Medellín in the Rionegro Valley. The remaining production scatters across the central and western regions. In total, Colombia dedicates over ten thousand hectares to flower cultivation—the largest area among all exporting nations, surpassing even the Netherlands, Ecuador, Kenya, and Ethiopia.

The diversity is staggering. Colombia grows more than fifty different species and over 1,400 varieties. Roses dominate—accounting for 19.1 percent of production and 22.6 percent of export value—but the savanna also produces carnations, chrysanthemums, hydrangeas, alstroemerias, lilies, orchids, heliconias, and countless specialty blooms. Colombia is the world’s largest producer and exporter of carnations, commanding the market with flowers prized for their quality, beauty, and extraordinary longevity.

The Valentine’s Day Miracle

Every January, as American florists begin preparing for Valentine’s Day, an extraordinary mobilization begins in Colombia. Farms that normally operate with twenty workers per hectare triple their staff. Greenhouses hum with activity around the clock. The stakes are existential: Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day together represent roughly half of annual sales for Colombian flower farms.

At dawn on a January morning, cargo trucks begin their procession from farms scattered across the savanna toward El Dorado International Airport. Time is the enemy. From the moment a stem is cut, the flower begins to age. Every minute matters.

Inside the greenhouses, workers move with balletic precision. Roses are cut at exact stages of development—buds carefully calibrated to open fully just as they reach their final destination. The flowers are immediately plunged into cold water enriched with preservatives, then rushed to sorting stations where they’re graded for length, straightness, bud size, and freedom from blemishes. Each stem is sleeved in protective wrapping and packed into specially designed boxes that maintain precise temperatures during transport.

By late afternoon, refrigerated trucks arrive at El Dorado’s cargo terminal, where millions of stems from dozens of farms converge. Massive cold storage facilities maintain the flowers at dormant temperatures—so cold that among thousands of blooms, there’s no trace of scent. Digital systems coordinate with U.S. Customs, pre-clearing shipments to eliminate delays that could prove fatal to perishable cargo.

As night falls, jumbo jets—many operated by Avianca Cargo, Colombia’s flagship carrier—climb into the Andean sky, their holds packed with flowers. During the Valentine’s season, Avianca more than doubles its capacity, operating approximately three hundred cargo flights over three weeks, transporting eighteen thousand tons of flowers. The destinations are overwhelmingly American: Miami primarily, but also Los Angeles, New York, and other major hubs.

Most of the flowers—about 90 percent of all cut flowers sold for Valentine’s Day in the United States—flow through Miami International Airport, the undisputed flower gateway to America. The airport processes about 940 million stems during the Valentine’s rush, with 1,500 tons arriving daily between January and February. Annually, flowers account for nearly 400,000 tons of Miami’s cargo, worth approximately 1.6 billion dollars.

The journey from savanna to supermarket takes less than 48 hours—a logistical feat that would have been unimaginable a generation ago and remains remarkable even today.

Behind the Plastic Walls

The greenhouses themselves are deceptively simple structures—plastic sheeting stapled to wooden frames, with none of the high-tech sophistication of Dutch or Japanese facilities. But the low-rent appearance masks highly sophisticated operations.

Inside a farm called M.G. Consultores during Mother’s Day preparations, 320 workers array themselves along two long conveyor belts with fourteen parallel rows of workstations. The work is divided into discrete tasks—measuring, cutting, bunching, dipping in antifungal solutions, boxing—each step optimized for efficiency. It’s industrial agriculture applied to ephemeral beauty, assembly lines producing symbols of love and celebration.

The industry formally employs 110,000 people directly and supports another 90,000 in related industries—transport, packaging, logistics, inspections. When indirect effects are counted, the flower trade provides income for approximately 200,000 Colombians and affects the livelihoods of many more. The vast majority—approximately 60 percent—are women.

This feminization of the flower industry has been one of its most profound social impacts. Before flower farms arrived in the 1960s, rural women in Colombia had few employment options beyond subsistence farming or domestic work. The flower industry changed everything.

“When flower farms came around, women suddenly became the owners of their destinies,” explains José Azout, president of Alexandra Farms, the world’s largest grower of garden roses. Women earned their own incomes, gained economic independence, purchased homes, educated children. Many became household heads, supporting families. The transformation rippled through communities—new schools, health clinics, infrastructure, all built on the foundation of flower money.

Yet the industry’s history is not without shadows. In its early decades, labor conditions were often harsh. Women reported sexual harassment, long hours without breaks, repetitive stress injuries without treatment. A 1994 study found children as young as nine working in greenhouses on Saturdays. A 1981 survey documented exposure to 127 different chemicals—fungicides, pesticides, herbicides—with inadequate protection.

Over time, pressure from international buyers, labor organizations, and certification bodies has driven improvements. Integrated Crop Management systems have dramatically reduced chemical use. Florverde Sustainable Flowers certification, developed by Asocolflores (the Colombian flower exporters’ association), sets standards for environmental protection, worker safety, and fair labor practices. Many farms now provide healthcare, childcare, education subsidies, and housing for workers.

Still, challenges persist. Short-term contracts have become standard, making jobs precarious and organizing difficult. The 2008 financial crisis devastated the industry—twenty-two thousand jobs lost, fifteen farms closed, workers dismissed without severance. More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic saw 50 percent order cancellations in 2020, threatening the industry’s survival. The sector recovered, but vulnerability remains.

The Environmental Reckoning

From the air, the Bogotá savanna presents a troubling vista: vast expanses of plastic greenhouses where wetlands and native grasslands once thrived. The transformation has been dramatic and irreversible.

Water is the central concern. Flower farms consume enormous quantities—for irrigation, for pesticide and fertilizer application, for cooling and processing. Much of this water comes from aquifers beneath the ancient lakebed, and decades of intensive pumping have caused measurable land subsidence in municipalities like Facatativá and El Rosal. Studies using satellite radar interferometry document sinking rates of up to 20 millimeters per year in areas surrounded by greenhouses.

The rivers crossing the savanna—once clear and teeming with life—are now among Colombia’s most polluted waterways. Agricultural runoff carries pesticides, fertilizers, and organic waste into streams that feed the Bogotá River, which by the time it reaches the Tequendama Falls resembles an open sewer more than a mountain river. Restoration efforts are ongoing, but the damage accumulated over fifty years proves stubborn.

The greenhouse monocultures have displaced traditional agriculture. Municipalities that once grew potatoes, wheat, and barley for domestic consumption now dedicate their land to export flowers. This shift threatens food security and sovereignty, making the region dependent on imported food and vulnerable to global price fluctuations.

Biodiversity has plummeted. The Bogotá savanna, once home to unique high-altitude species adapted to its particular conditions, has seen native habitat shrink dramatically. Where wetlands once provided refuge for endemic birds and amphibians, plastic sheeting now dominates the landscape.

Yet solutions are emerging. Certification programs require environmental management plans. Biological pest control reduces chemical inputs. Closed-loop water systems recycle irrigation runoff. Some farms experiment with renewable energy, installing solar panels to power operations. Transportation innovations include refrigerated rail service from inland farms to the port of Mombasa, opening possibilities for lower-carbon sea freight instead of air cargo.

The industry faces an existential choice: evolve toward genuine sustainability or risk losing market access as consumers and regulators demand environmental accountability.

The American Connection

The Colombian flower industry would not exist without the United States—not just as market, but as architect.

In 1991, as part of broader efforts to combat cocaine production and provide legitimate agricultural alternatives, the U.S. government suspended import duties on Colombian flowers under the Andean Trade Preference Act. The results were dramatic and, for U.S. growers, catastrophic.

In 1971, the United States produced 1.2 billion blooms of major flowers—roses, carnations, chrysanthemums—and imported only 100 million. By 2003, Colombian imports had surged to 55 percent of U.S. cut flower consumption. A decade later, that figure reached 65 percent. Today, it exceeds 70 percent.

California, once America’s flower capital, saw its industry collapse. Farms that had flourished for generations closed, unable to compete with Colombian blooms available year-round at lower prices. The trade brought jobs to Colombia and affordable flowers to American consumers, but at the cost of domestic agricultural capacity.

Miami became the chokepoint through which this trade flows. The airport invested hundreds of millions in cold storage facilities—466,000 square feet of refrigerated space, more than any other U.S. airport. During peak seasons, electric carts race through the cargo terminal, organizing flowers from dozens of farms. U.S. Customs and Border Protection agriculture specialists work around the clock, inspecting shipments for pests and diseases that could threaten American agriculture.

The specialists shake each bundle over white paper, examining anything that falls out with magnifying glasses and flashlights. They’ve intercepted beetles, grasshoppers, wasps, moths, and more exotic threats. During the 2024 Valentine’s season, specialists cleared more than 830 million stems and found approximately 1,100 pests in 75,000 sampled boxes.

The efficiency is remarkable. Ground crews aim to move flowers from aircraft to cargo terminal within ninety seconds. Inside the chilled warehouses, the flowers are organized and inspected before being loaded onto refrigerated trucks destined for florists and supermarkets across the continent. From farm to American vase: less than 48 hours.

The Future Garden

On a recent morning in Bogotá, I met Augusto Solano, CEO of Asocolflores, in the organization’s modern offices near the airport. Maps on the wall charted flower farms across the savanna—each pin representing millions of stems, thousands of workers, decades of accumulated knowledge.

“We’re at a crossroads,” Solano explained. “Climate change threatens our water supplies and creates unpredictable weather. Rising fuel costs challenge our transportation economics. Young consumers in our markets demand sustainability and transparency. We must evolve or become irrelevant.”

Digital transformation offers one path forward. Blockchain systems, pioneered in partnerships with IBM and Dutch logistics companies, create transparent supply chains where every shipment’s journey is tracked in real-time. Buyers can verify origin, working conditions, environmental certifications. The technology could unlock billions in new trade by reducing fraud and inefficiency.

Direct digital sales are reshaping the market. Rather than sending flowers to auction houses in Amsterdam, Colombian farms increasingly connect directly with buyers through platforms that handle everything from ordering to delivery to payment. This disintermediation improves margins for growers and reduces handling time for flowers.

Online floriculture sales, driven by younger consumers who shop via smartphone, are projected to increase 500 percent over the next decade. This shift could revolutionize distribution, potentially allowing flowers to move from farm to doorstep without traditional wholesalers and retailers—a vertical integration that would have been impossible before digital platforms.

Climate adaptation looms large. The Bogotá savanna has always been climatically stable—consistent temperatures, predictable rainfall, abundant water. But global climate change threatens this reliability. Unusual frosts, unexpected droughts, shifting precipitation patterns—all could disrupt production in a region where timing is everything.

Water management will prove critical. Aquifer depletion cannot continue indefinitely. Farms are experimenting with rainwater harvesting, drip irrigation, recycled water systems. Some are exploring desalination technologies, despite the energy costs. The most forward-thinking operations treat water as the finite resource it is, measuring every liter and maximizing efficiency.

Perhaps most importantly, the industry must reckon with its social contract. The women who work these farms—cutting, sorting, packing, shipping—are not interchangeable parts in an industrial machine. They are mothers, daughters, sisters, breadwinners. Their health, dignity, and economic security matter not just morally but practically: an industry built on exploitation cannot sustain itself in an era of global scrutiny and social media exposure.

The Carnation and the Rose

Late one afternoon, I visited a carnation farm in Madrid, a municipality west of Bogotá where greenhouses dominate the landscape. The farm manager, Claudia Moreno, walked me through rows of flowers in shades I’d never imagined carnations could achieve—deep burgundy bleeding to cream, magenta streaked with white, pure purple that seemed to glow in the filtered light.

“Carnations are Colombia’s signature,” Moreno said. “We’re the world’s largest producer and exporter. These flowers are perfect for our climate—they love cool temperatures and high altitude. They’re hardy, they ship well, they last forever in a vase. But in America, they’re not fashionable. People think of them as cheap flowers, nothing special.”

It’s a painful irony. Colombian carnations are objectively the finest in the world—larger blooms, more vivid colors, superior longevity. Yet American consumers associate them with gas station bouquets and cheap supermarket bunches, not with the sophisticated cultivation and decades of varietal refinement that produce them.

Roses tell a different story. Colombia produces 25 percent of the world’s roses and has captured the premium market through relentless focus on quality. Long stems, large buds, intense colors—Colombian roses are prized by high-end florists and command premium prices. Farms like Alexandra specialize in garden roses, extraordinarily complex blooms with dozens of petals that unfurl like sculptures. These flowers cost ten times what standard roses fetch, and demand exceeds supply.

The contrast illustrates the challenge facing Colombian floriculture: how to translate genuine quality into market recognition and premium pricing when consumers make split-second decisions based on appearance and cost. Branding, marketing, consumer education—soft skills that farmers are now forced to develop alongside agronomic expertise.

Amor y Espinas

As sunset approaches over the savanna, the Andes turn purple and gold, dramatic light raking across the high plateau. Greenhouse plastic glints like scattered diamonds. In the cool evening air, you can almost imagine Lake Humboldt returning, water rising to cover this landscape again.

The flowers growing here—roses, carnations, chrysanthemums, hydrangeas—are symbols of love, celebration, sympathy, joy. They mark our most important moments: weddings, funerals, birthdays, apologies, declarations of affection. That such symbols should be mass-produced on industrial farms thousands of miles from where they’re ultimately displayed creates a cognitive dissonance we rarely examine.

Yet there’s something profound in this trade. Colombian flower workers—predominantly women, many of them single mothers supporting families—are directly connected to moments of genuine human emotion across continents. The roses María Elena Rodríguez cuts at dawn on the Bogotá savanna will be presented by nervous suitors, placed on anniversary tables, clutched by tearful mourners. Her labor, however invisible to the final consumer, is woven into the fabric of other people’s most meaningful experiences.

The industry is imperfect—economically exploitative, environmentally destructive, socially complex. But it’s also provided opportunities where few existed, lifted thousands from poverty, empowered women, built communities. The story of Colombian flowers is amor y espinas—love and thorns—inseparable, each giving the other meaning.

Standing in that greenhouse as workers prepared for the next day’s harvest, boxes stacked and ready for the journey to El Dorado, I thought about the chain of hands through which each flower would pass: the cutter who selected it, the sorter who graded it, the packer who boxed it, the trucker who drove it, the cargo handler who loaded it, the customs inspector who cleared it, the wholesaler who bought it, the florist who arranged it, the customer who purchased it, the person who received it.

Dozens of people, spanning continents and cultures, briefly connected by a single flower—a rose that began its journey on an ancient lakebed high in the Colombian Andes.

The sun had set completely now, and the greenhouses glowed from within—thousands of lights creating constellations across the dark savanna. Tomorrow, the harvest would begin again, as it has every morning for sixty years. And somewhere, perhaps in a Miami apartment or a New York office or a Los Angeles home, someone would receive Colombian flowers and smile, entirely unaware of the journey those blooms had made to arrive fresh and beautiful and ready to convey what words alone cannot express.

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Colombia’s flower industry exports over 2 billion dollars worth of blooms annually to more than 100 countries, but the vast majority—approximately 85 percent—go to the United States. The industry provides formal employment for 110,000 Colombians directly and supports 200,000 more indirectly, making it one of the country’s most significant non-mining exports, second only to coffee.

https://hk-florist.com/category/flower-magazine