Employment and working conditions
in the Colombian flower industry

   Flower production is a labour-intensive activity since few production processes can be mechanized (Mendéz, 1991). Direct data on the number of workers employed in the sector have been lacking and estimates are arrived at from cultivated area and average number of workers per hectare. Seasonal and cyclical variations are particularly evident for the earlier years. Granados and Guevara (1981) estimate that in 1970 the sector employed 700 persons directly and in 1980 45,000. For 1977 Monitor as well as Asocolflores (8) assumed that the sector employed 25,000 persons. Currently, according to Asocolflores (9) the direct employment generated by the sector is put at 70-75,000. Diaz and Rojas (1994) estimate 80,000. The above figures incorporate different implicit assumptions which need to be straightened out for the calculation of a coherent series. This exercise will be carried out in the next sections of this paper.

   Various estimates of area exist. Here we have decided to use the series estimated by Junguito (1981) for the period 1971-80. For 1981 we assume an area of 1,100 hectares, a figure on which many sources agree (Granados and Guevara, 1981, Asocolflores (s.f.) and Sena, 1992). Finally, since 1990 we rely on information provided by Asocolflores.

   At the beginning, flower production in Colombia consisted almost exclusively of carnations, a variety which requires a comparatively large amount of labour. A study by PROEXPO mentions that at the end of the 1970s one hectare of carnations required 30 workers. On average flower cultivation generated 23.6 direct employment per hectare (see table 2). Junguito (1981) estimates labour requirements at between 25 and 37.5 workers per hectare. The same author observes that floriculture enjoyed a fairly high level of technology, so that the requirements for technological improvements were not very significant, at least until the end of the 1970s. As a result, in the these years the increase in production was based more on the increase in cultivated area rather than technological improvements and productivity increases. The above suggests a cautious employment coefficient for the period 1971-81 of 25 workers per hectare. Since then, however, flower-growing has been increasingly diversified. Currently, in addition to carnations more than 50 species of flowers are cultivated, such as pompon, chrysanthemum, astromelia, and especially roses, which have considerably increased their presence since the mid-1980s and which require much less labour. At the same time, the industry has turned more technical: in the beginning the enterprises employed a large group of workers for irrigation, whereas today, irrigation and fertilization are done by a drop-dripping system automatically (Hoyos, 1996). Grading rooms have also improved with the introduction of automatic tranport and grading machines. The size of famrs has increased which facilitates economies of scales in the use of labour (10).It is not surprising therefore, that table 3 shows a sharp fall in the requirements of labour per cultivated hectare between 1979 and 1993 -- from 30 to 19 for carnations, 20 to 13 for chrysanthemum and gypsophil, and 18 to 11 for roses. This translates to a fall in the number of workers per hectare from 23.6 to 14.2. Asocolflores uses an average of 15 workers per hectare for production, harvesting, grainding and packing (11). This average is similar to the one resulting from a survey of Aflocsa among its affiliates in Sabana de Bogotá: 15.7 workers per hectare. This can increase to 17.6 if management and the administrative staff (12) are added. It is worth abserving that this last figure is similar to the one that appears on the information leaflets from Asocolflores (18 workers per hectare). In view of the small margin between these estimates we decided to use 17 workers as the figure for the average per cultivated hectare as of 1990.

Table 2. Average number of directly employed workers per hectare according to cultivation type, Sabana de Bogotá, 1979 and 1993

   Table 3 presents employment data in the Colombian flower-growing sector according to the criteria defined in the previous sections. In this sense, a relatively low employment growth is evidenced until the mid-1970s, which accelerates notably in the last part of the decade, reaching a level of 27,000 workers employed directly in 1980-81. In the following 15 years employment increased to 71,000, a rate of growth notably above that of average employment which increased 53 per cent during the sam period. Share of flower in total employment consequently increased from 0.3 per cent to 0.5 per cent (13). While being still quite marginal at the national level, it is very significant at the level of some regions. For example, the flower industry represents more than 13 per cent of total employment in the Department of Cundinamarca. In addition, municipalities in Sabana de Bogotá, such as Madrid, Subachoque, Facatativá, Funza, also have significant employment in flower growing.

Table 3. Employment in the flower-growing sector

   In the last years, the low growth in the volume of exports, increasing mechanization, and replacement of carnations by roses have resulted in a reversal in the trend described above. If the employment coefficient really fell to 15 workers per hectare, the flower-growing-sector lost some 8,000 jobs. On the other hand, in addition to direct employment generated in the sector, a large number of enterprises exist related to the flower industry -- those that supply imports required by cultivation, in particular, chemical inputs, such as pesticides and fertilizers; those that produce plastic covers for the greenhouses, cardboard for the boxes for exports, rubber bands; transport companies; and farms providing marketing and other services. Mendéz (1991) estimates that more than 50,000 workers are employed in such flower-related activities. The study mentioned earlier by PROEXPO estimates indirect employment to be equivalent to some 20 per cent of direct employment -- i.e. 12-15,000 workers, much lower than the previous estimate. In any event, neither of the two sources indicates the criteria used in deriving the estimates.

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