On Nov. 25, 2003, some 200 workers at Flores Aposentos, outside Bogota, were hospitalized after fainting and developing sores inside their mouths. Authorities determined this mass poisoning could have been caused by any number of pesticide-handling violations, but fined the company just $5,770.
Causal links between chemicals and individual illnesses are hard to prove because chronic pesticide exposure has not been studied in enough detail. But the Harvard School of Public Health examined 72 children ages 7-8 in a flower-growing region of Ecuador whose mothers were exposed to pesticides during pregnancy and found they had developmental delays of up to four years on aptitude tests.
"Every time we look, we're finding out these pesticides are more dangerous than we ever thought before and more toxic at lower levels," said Philippe Grandjean, who led the Harvard study published last year.
Producers say they would love to go organic, especially given the high costs of pesticides. But their risks include infestations and stiff competition from emerging flower growers in Africa and China.
"The biggest hurdle to going organic is that once you're there you have to be prepared to lose your crop," said John Amaya, president of the Miami-based flower unit of Dole Food Co., Colombia's largest flower grower.
Still, U.S. consumers bought $16 million in organic flowers in 2005, and demand is growing by 50 percent a year, according to the Organic Trade Association.
That growth has been helped by VeriFlora, a certification and labeling program launched by U.S. consumers, growers and retailers including Whole Foods Market Inc. Some 32 farms in Colombia and Ecuador have earned the VeriFlora label, which requires a transition to organic production and unlike Florverde bans more than 100 chemicals outright.
"Unfortunately, existing programs have deficiencies that would not fly in the American marketplace," said Linda Brown, vice president of Scientific Certification Systems, which runs the VeriFlora program.
Gerald Prolman, CEO of San Francisco-based Organic Bouquet.com, counts on VeriFlora-certified growers for much of his supply.
"If producers want to distinguish their flowers from the glut of cheap, chemically produced ones in the world right now they need to ensure that their farms have fully incorporated socially and environmentally responsible practices that consumers demand and are willing to pay more for," he said.
