Heavy rains have been battering Colombia for much of the past year (Pic: Eitan Abramovich/AFP/Getty)
Heavy rains in Colombia have threatened the country’s flower exports in the run-up to International Mother’s Day on 8 May.
According to a report in the Miami Herald, some of the heaviest rains in the history of the country have destroyed 140,000 homes and killed at least 418 people as a result of flooding and landslides.
Flower-farming areas were some of the hardest hit by the storms, with many of those in the savannah north of the capital being almost wiped out.
President of the Association of Colombian Flower Exporters Augusto Solano said: “On an individual basis, there are some dramatic cases with total losses and farms that are completely underwater. But it’s impossible to generalise. We still don’t know how many acres were affected. But we’re trying to resolve these issues and help producers ship their holiday orders.”
It is estimated that the damage could range from 5% to 15% of national production. In response, the government has announced it will triple its fund to aid the agricultural sector to 1.2 trillion pesos - or about £412m. That’s in addition to 4.5 trillion pesos, or about £1.5bn, the government had already set aside for the weather problems in the 2010-2011 budgets.
