Colombians are hard at work picking and packaging flowers to export to the United States ahead of Valentine's Day.
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Colombians are hard at work picking and packaging flowers to export to the United States ahead of Valentine's Day.
Colombia is the source of 74% of flowers imported to the US for the holiday and is the world's second-largest flower producer after the Netherlands.
Some 35,000 tonnes of flowers will be sent to the US for the February 14 celebration.
The Colombian industry has a reputation for having the largest variety of exotic flowers for export in the world.
But it's more than just big business, according to Alvaro Camacho, manager of the Elite Flowers company.
"What we sell, more than flowers, are emotions. There are 14,000 people involved in our season. Each person knows that every stem that is passing through their hands will represent an emotion, a feeling for a person who will deliver it," he told Reuters.