(13 Feb 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Miami – 12 February 2024
1. Workers opening box of flowers
2. Customs official shaking flowers
3. Close flowers
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Abel Serrano, Customs and Border Protection Branch Chief, Agriculture Air Cargo:
"90% of the flowers that arrive to the United States come through Miami International Airport."
5. Wide unpacking area
6. Close woman shaking flowers
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Abel Serrano, Customs and Border Protection Branch Chief, Agriculture Air Cargo:
"Our mission here is to avoid and stop any possible exotic pest, plant exotic pest, to establish in the United States. This would also include animal diseases."
8. Close inspection of flower remnants
9. Display of pests
10. Customs official handling flowers
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Diogo Elias, Avianca Cargo, senior vice president:
"From the farm to Miami, for example, it's a day and a half, usually (to transport). So it's really quick."
12. Flower boxes
13. Wide inspection
14. Close flowers
15. SOUNDBITE (English) SOUNDBITE (English) Diogo Elias, Avianca Cargo, senior vice president:
"This season we transported around 460 million flowers from Ecuador and Colombia. Most of them are roses. So 300 million roses from those countries for Valentine’s. Those are huge numbers: almost one flower for each American living here."
16. Wide cargo plane unloading
17. Colombia flag on plane
STORYLINE:
While Valentine's Day may not be known as a busy time for air travel, it's a busy time at Miami International Airport. where many of the nation's fresh cut flowers arrive from South America.
Around 90% of the roses and fresh cut flowers being sold for Valentine's Day in the United States come through Miami, according to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. They arrive on hundreds of flights into Miami on their journey to florists and supermarkets across the U.S. and Canada. That equates to some 48,000 tons of flowers passing through Miami.
“This season we transported around 460 million flowers from Ecuador and Colombia,” Diogo Elias, senior vice president of Avianca Cargo, said Monday during a news conference in Miami.
Among the most exported flowers this season by the airline were roses and carnations from Bogota; pompons, hydrangeas and chrysanthemums from Medellin; and roses, carnations and gypsophila from Quito, Avianca said in a statement.
The Valentine season actually started in mid-January and ends Wednesday. During that three-week period, flowers arrived in Miami on some 300 flights, Elias said.
And that's where U.S. Customs and Border Protection agriculture specialists come into play. At the airport, they check the bundles of flowers to prevent the introduction of potentially harmful plant, pest and foreign animal disease from entering the country.
Their job is to make sure the floral imports don't contain the kinds of exotic pests and foreign animal diseases which have caused $120 billion annually in economic and environmental losses in the United States, said Danny Alonso, the airport's port director.
It is a massive undertaking.
Through Feb. 8, agriculture specialists had processed about 832 million stems of cut flowers, inspected 75,000 cut flower sample boxes, and intercepted 1,100 plant pests, he said. During the same time last year, specialists processed more than 861 million stems of flowers, resulting in 932 plant pest interceptions
“It’s one of the most demanding times of the year for our staff here,” Alonso said.
(AP video by Daniel Kozin)
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