The true cost of Ecuador’s perfect roses: how the global flower trade poisons workers
Many farmers in the Andes rely on growing blooms for export, but high water usage and risky pesticides threaten Indigenous communities
The fertile high valley near La Chimba trembles with sounds. The rhythms of brass bands and cumbia music clash like weather fronts, each playing its own beats in the Andean rain. A rainbow spans the slopes and white plastic greenhouses, protecting the region’s treasure: roses bred for beauty, shipped abroad, blooming far from home.
Amid the drizzle, Patricia Catucuamba and her husband, Milton Navas, share a jug of chicha, a maize brew vital to their harvest celebrations. Since 2000, they have worked as dairy farmers, but sustaining a milk business requires expanses of land beyond the reach of most smallholders.
Like many in Cayambe, they started a new venture five years ago: a cut-flower business specialising in roses, which offer higher profits on less land.
“Diversification isn’t just a strategy, it’s survival here,” says Catucuamba at her family’s ranch, pointing to a 4,500 sq metre greenhouse with rows of five rose varieties built at an altitude of 3,300 metres, where the air is thin and sharp.
Growing and exporting flowers has become a speciality of Ecuador’s economy in recent years, and three-quarters of its rose production is centred in the Cayambe region, according to Expoflores, the national association of flower producers and exporters.
Roses account for 66% of the country’s total flower output, a figure that propelled Ecuador in 2024 to become the world’s third-largest exporter, with more than 2bn stems sold annually, behind only the Netherlands and Colombia.
However, Ecuadorian scholars and campaigners question whether the economic opportunities it offers can really secure producers’ futures – or perhaps trap them in a toxic system marked by the overuse of pesticides.
In the global market, Ecuador’s rise in flower production has been associated with quality. The country’s roses are a high-value export, generating more revenue than coffee, bananas or other agricultural products. Rising demand has led to thousands of hectares flourishing in the water-scarce Andes north-east of Quito…
© Jasper Fabian Wenzel · The Guardian, 20 February 2026
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