Colombia’s flower industry: a story of extractivism and resistance

When we think of extractivism, we tend to picture oil rigs, open-pit mines, or deforested landscapes. But the destruction of nature for export and profit can also take the shape of a vast stretch of plastic: the greenhouses that cover the Sabana de Bogotá, Colombia, for the industrial production of cut flowers.

Flowers are symbols of love, celebration, and joy. Yet the industrial production behind those bouquets in European or North American flower shops tells a much darker story. Countries like Colombia, Kenya, and Ecuador have become key exporters in the cut-flower market. But at what cost? Beyond the roses bought for Saint Valentine’s day, there’s a story of environmental degradation, labor exploitation, and the concentration of land and resources in the hands of a few powerful agribusinesses. At the same time, there is a parallel story of resistance of those trying to humanize the system and those who reject it entirely, laying the foundations for a different society.

What does extractivism look like in practice in the cut-flower industry? To get an idea, we can turn to Colombia, the world’s second largest exporter of cut flowers. The Colombian case offers an example of some key contradictions at the heart of this industry. On one side, a powerful floriculture sector is promoted by the state through free trade agreements and a development narrative that celebrates growth, exports, and women’s employment; on the other, precarious working conditions are endured while quietly or collectively resisting a system that exploits both labor and land. These struggles not only expose the costs of this model but also point towards radically different ways of organizing life and work.

Emancipation or precarity?

Colombia’s cut-flower industry is often applauded as a national success story, a symbol of modernization and progress. Since the 1970s, the sector has grown rapidly, especially through free trade agreements with the US and a deliberate attempt to diversify the country’s international image. In official rhetoric, flowers are presented as a cleaner, softer export than cocaine, offering Colombia a new identity tied to beauty, growth, and global integration. A central piece of this narrative is the supposed empowerment of women. As the industry employs mostly female workers, it is often portrayed as a pathway to emancipation and financial autonomy. Yet, there’s a dark truth behind this story of success.

The Sabana de Bogotá is the area where the flower cultivation is concentrated in Colombia and where it dominates the local economy. Since most of the employment in the area comes from floriculture, this industry creates an economic lock-in in the region. This occurs when a single sector holds so much power that communities become dependent on it even if it harms them. In the last few decades, the flower industry has seen an increase in flexibilization: short-term contracts have become the norm and jobs are increasingly more precarious, making it harder for workers to organize or join unions without risking their livelihoods. And the conditions under which the workers operate are far from idyllic. The cut-flower industry operates under an export-oriented model of capitalist development, marked by monoculture expansion, economic specialization, and the overexploitation of natural and human resources. The floriculture sector is dominated by a few large corporations that prioritize capital accumulation through a model of industrial agriculture that maximizes production. The leaders of the industry are not experienced in agriculture or flower cultivation: they are business people trying to produce the most with the lowest costs possible.

To this end and to ensure impeccable flowers, producers rely heavily on agrochemicals that contaminate the soil and water. In practice, the use of fertilizers, especially nitrogen, contributes to the acidification of the soil and the pollution and eutrophication of canals. In addition to the environmental impacts, pesticides have damaging effects on health. Because cut flowers are not consumed, they are not subject to pesticide residue regulations, allowing companies to use chemicals with far less oversight. Workers, mostly women, are often exposed to these toxic substances without adequate protective gear. This can lead to chronic respiratory diseases, skin and eye conditions, and effects on reproductive health. Moreover, the long-term effects of agrochemical exposure are understudied and minimized, with little research investigating connections between cancer cases in the region within former flower workers. In addition to these long-term health conditions, the absence of occupational health measures like active breaks dedicated to stretching the body leads to another set of health issues related to postural and muscular pain.

This model is not only ecologically harmful, but also socially alienating. The flower industry does not sustain social reproduction since labor is subcontracted to intermediary companies, which enables poorer labor conditions. With many short-term contracts and a quick turnover, participation in trade unions is low. Tasks are repetitive and exhausting, often likened to factory assembly lines: cutting, classifying, and assembling hundreds of stems per hour. During peak seasons like Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day, hours can stretch to 50 a week. The job is also stigmatized, considered of a low social status, and can be associated with negative stereotypes: women working in this industry do not take enough care of their children, they are “easy”, and without values. And, in addition to working long hours while still struggling to make ends meet, women come home to another shift of unpaid domestic and care work, making it hard to have leisure time or engage in political activities. Communities watch their fertile land being turned into toxic monocultures, with little benefit to their long-term well-being. The promise of development has, in reality, meant the erosion of autonomy, health, and ecological balance.

Resistance and Reimagination: Alternatives in the Sabana de Bogotá

What can be done when vast corporations take control of the land, poison the soil, and exploit the hands that care for it?

Resistance to the Colombian cut-flower industry takes many forms, some confrontational, others quieter, but all begin with the same shared awareness: that environmental destruction, labor exploitation, and gender injustice are deeply interconnected. Acknowledging these violations and their intersections is the first act of resistance. The next is building something different.

An example of direct labor resistance comes from the case of Benilda, a flower company that tried to shut down operations without fulfilling its obligations to the workers. Between 2006 and 2009, Benilda delayed wage payments, stopped contributing to social security, and pressured workers to resign “voluntarily” to avoid paying dismissal compensation. In response, workers occupied the workplace for 64 days, eventually forcing negotiations with the flower company Benilda through the leverage of two trade unions in the flower sector. The workers were demanding that Benilda pay the overdue wages, including the days of ceased activities, and to restore social security. The occupation and strikes led to a partial victory: the workers managed to obtain compensation in this specific case, but many of the same exploitative practices remain in the rest of the industry across the country. Though some labor protections were introduced in the following years, enforcement is practically nonexistent.

But not all resistance is about reforming the system from within. In the Sabana de Bogotá, many workers, activists, and local communities are organizing to create alternatives that move beyond the logic of extractivism entirely. Rather than just asking for “better jobs” within the flower industry, these movements question this model of development itself, based on endless economic growth, free trade, and industrial production.

Take, for example, the Red Agroecológica de la Sabana de Bogotá, a network focused on food sovereignty, agroecology, and land justice. Its members reject the dominance of flower monocultures and envision a future where the Sabana produces its own food, offers stability, and is free from the power of the cut-flower agribusinesses. A member of the Red Agroecológica explained how agroecology can help create a new relationship between the land and the community: “The Sabana that I dream of is the one where people who come here see that this is a territory where they can grow their roots; when one grows their roots as a net, then one cares, loves, and creates a bond with the place”.

This vision is shared by many different collectives: intergenerational groups of women promoting an economy based on solidarity and food sovereignty, such as Red Popular de Mujeres de la Sabana; movements for the rights of indigenous people, Afro-Colombians, and campesinos, such as CentrOriente; organizations based on popular education, such as Fuerza Feminina Popular, and many more. The Asociación Herrera leads by example, working collectively to recover common goods and reclaim the territory. This association was created in 2009 with the objectives of developing alternative work options to the flower agroindustry through a critical approach based on situated knowledge and pre-hispanic practices. These aims are pursued through projects centered around memory and territory, education on human rights, and art. And these ideas go hand in hand with practical action around common goods. Asociación Herrera protects the land by celebrating mingas, an ancestral indigenous practice based on community work, or by exchanging native seeds to protect the plant genes. It recovers the territory by collectivizing private housing through houses open to the community, renewing abandoned spaces for shared use. It creates commons and expands them through collaboration with indigenous and campesinos organizations, such as the establishment of domestic gardens in the house of the floriculture workers and in vacant private spaces. These gardens become places to share traditional growing techniques, recipes, and suggestions for natural pesticides that have been passed down through generations.

One of their projects, the Escuela de Mujeres de Madrid (EMM), a popular school for women, provides intergenerational spaces where women cultivate land, share situated knowledge, and support one another through political education and agroecological work. This project originated as a set of workshops for female workers in the flower sector to reflect on their working conditions and the injustices occurring at their workplace. Later, it became a permanent pedagogical space for working-class women meant to reflect on the connections between capital, work, nature, and the body. In other words, EMM facilitates a collective conversation on how the exploitation of workers in the cut-flower industry is intertwined with the exploitation of the land, which manifests in the bodies of women through skin conditions caused by pesticide exposure and creates fatigue and feelings of alienation from the repetitive and intense work. The EMM’s work is developed through exercises based on moving the body, cultivating organic crops, discussions, and cooperative work. The Escuela de Mujeres de Madrid offers an alternative development paradigm, based on agroecology, food sovereignty, and ancestral knowledge as tools of care, resilience, and repair. They refuse the logic that women’s emancipation can only be achieved through precarious jobs in toxic greenhouses, and recognize that healing bodies, soils, and communities must go hand in hand.

Beyond developmentalist structures

The experiences of Asociación Herrera and the Escuela de Mujeres de Madrid offer examples of resistance to the cut-flower industry and represent a radical reframing of what development, territory, and care can mean. In the face of a mainstream development model rooted in extractivism, monoculture, and capitalist accumulation, these women-led movements nurture alternative visions built on collective labor, ecological restoration, and a dignified life beyond wage dependency.

At the same time, it is important to be honest about the limits of these struggles. Many grassroots initiatives, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic, have faced major setbacks, reducing their activities while the power of agro-export corporations remains immense. These movements alone may not be able to dismantle the cut-flower industry as it stands. Structural political interventions, international labor protections, and transnational solidarity are essential to shifting the balance of power. Still, the counter-developmental paths these communities are carving, rooted in campesino traditions, feminist organizing, and decolonial practices, offer crucial lessons. They remind us that extractivism and resistance to it can occur in different forms. And yet, whether in the shape of a mine or a deforested landscape, these extractivist practices are driven by the same logic of capital accumulation at the expense of nature and women. The examples of Asociación Herrera and all the other movements in the Sabana de Bogotá show that an alternative, radical vision is possible.

For degrowth thinkers and activists, this means not only rejecting extractivism in theory but learning from the everyday practices of those who are working on alternatives. It means questioning the development models we export, the supply chains we rely on, and the silent complicity built into global consumption patterns. But it also means finding hope and direction in the grounded, collective visions blooming across the Sabana de Bogotá.

This article is built on a literature review conducted for the incubator project “Women, health and water – striving for environmental justice in agribusiness” at Utrecht University.

This article is part of a degrowth.info series on movements for social and environmental justice worldwide. Find out more and read the other pieces of the series here.