The global cut-flower industry—worth billions annually and supplying bouquets for weddings, holidays, and everyday occasions—depends on a handful of regions prized for their stable climates. But rising temperatures, erratic rainfall, and intensifying drought are now challenging the very conditions that made East Africa, South America, the Netherlands, and others flower-growing powerhouses, reshaping supply chains from Lake Naivasha to the Andes.

East Africa: Water Scarcity Imperils Kenya and Ethiopia

Kenya, the world’s fourth-largest cut-flower exporter, supplies roughly one-third of all roses sold in the European Union, an industry supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs. Production centers on Lake Naivasha, where high altitude, equatorial sunshine, and abundant water once guaranteed year-round harvests. That water is now the sector’s greatest vulnerability.

Recurring East African droughts have intensified competition among flower farms, fishing communities, and food growers for the same limited resource. Falling lake levels, alongside pesticide-related pollution, have added environmental strain. Industry analysts now describe secure water access—not land, labor, or logistics—as the single biggest long-term risk to Kenya’s flower sector.

Ethiopia, a fast-growing newcomer supplying about 2% of global cut flowers, faces a similar dynamic. Its floriculture industry has created over 100,000 jobs, mostly for women, but rests on the same high water demand and climate volatility. Both countries are racing to adopt more efficient irrigation and water recycling to protect a vital export revenue stream.

South America: Colombia and Ecuador Under Pressure

Colombia, the largest cut-flower producer globally, exports hundreds of millions of stems annually, mostly to the United States. Farms cluster near Bogotá’s international airport to minimize transit time—every extra day in shipping can reduce a flower’s value by roughly 15%. Any weather-related disruption to harvesting or air freight threatens this finely tuned supply chain.

Ecuador has built its reputation on large, high-altitude roses grown in industrial greenhouses. Cultivation is water- and chemical-intensive, and shifting rainfall patterns are compounding existing labor and environmental concerns. Heavy pesticide use and competition with indigenous and farming communities for water resources add to the strain.

Because Colombia and Ecuador dominate North America’s flower supply, sustained climate disruption in the Andes directly affects U.S. prices and availability—especially during Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day, when supply chains already run with almost no slack.

The Netherlands: Energy Costs Challenge Greenhouse Dominance

The Netherlands remains the epicenter of global flower trade: the world’s largest exporter, home to the dominant auction system, and a re-export hub for African flowers. Its climate challenge is not water but energy. Cold, cloudy winters force greenhouse producers to rely on fossil fuels for heating and supplemental lighting. Studies show Dutch-grown roses can generate several times the emissions of outdoor-grown Kenyan roses, even accounting for air freight.

As climate policy and rising energy costs accelerate, Dutch growers are investing in geothermal heating, efficient glazing, and renewable power—changes driven as much by economics as by direct weather disruption.

The United Kingdom: Import Dependence Creates Vulnerability

Britain imports roughly 90% of its £2.2 billion cut-flower market, leaving it exposed to climate disruptions from Kenya to the Netherlands. A recent Nuffield Farming scholarship report found that UK growers have focused on cutting their own carbon emissions while neglecting resilience against extreme heat, flooding, and drought at home.

That overseas risk has sparked growing interest in home-grown blooms. Promoted by networks of British flower farmers as a lower-carbon, more resilient alternative, domestic production still represents only a small fraction of what’s sold in the UK.

The United States and Southern Europe: Drought and Water Restrictions

California’s flower industry has faced worsening drought and water restrictions that raise costs and limit production, even as demand remains steady. Because the U.S. imports most of its cut flowers from Colombia and Ecuador, American consumers are indirectly exposed to Andean climate pressures. A modest resurgence in small-scale, direct-to-consumer domestic flower farming is partly framed around reducing exposure to that long, vulnerable import chain.

In Southern Europe, ornamental growers in Spain and Portugal compete directly with other water-intensive crops, including berries under plastic greenhouses, for increasingly scarce resources.

A Common Thread

Despite different climates and economies, flower-growing regions worldwide are converging on the same pressures: water scarcity, unpredictable seasons, rising pest and disease pressure, and the high cost of protecting a perishable, low-margin product against volatile weather. What varies is which pressure dominates—water in East Africa and the Andes, energy in the Netherlands, drought in California and southern Europe—but the underlying story is consistent. An industry built on stable, predictable climates must now adapt to a world where that stability can no longer be taken for granted.

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