US Drops Chrysanthemum White Rust Quarantine, Saving Colombian Growers $6M

Colombian chrysanthemum growers stand to save up to US$6 million a year after the United States removed Chrysanthemum White Rust from its quarantine pest list, a decision the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) announced will take effect on November 9, 2026. The stakes are large: in 2025 Colombia supplied roughly 98.6% of all U.S. chrysanthemum imports, shipping about US$143 million worth of flowers across 31,803 tons.

The ruling directly affects the 1,368 hectares of chrysanthemums under cultivation in Colombia. Spread across the sector, the projected US$6 million in annual savings works out to roughly US$4,400 per hectare in stripped-out compliance and management costs.

What changes on November 9, 2026?

Once Colombia completes the corresponding regulatory adjustments, exporters can eliminate several costly requirements tied to the disease. The measures slated for removal include:

• Registration of production sites
• Certain phytosanitary declarations
• Special inspections
• Particular markings on boxes and transport documents

Each of those steps adds handling time and documentation cost to a perishable cold chain that moves flowers by air in tightly scheduled windows. Cutting them shortens the path from farm gate to U.S. importers and reduces per-shipment overhead for both growers and freight forwarders handling floral cargo.

A four-year scientific push behind the decision

The delisting caps years of technical management led by Asocolflores, the Colombian flower growers' association, working with the Colombian Agricultural Institute (ICA), U.S. health authorities and the Colombian government. Since 2022, the research center Ceniflores, together with the Catholic University of the East, has studied the biology and behavior of white rust under Colombian tropical conditions. That scientific evidence fed the phytosanitary risk assessment that underpinned APHIS's review.

Ceniflores and Asocolflores also participated in APHIS public consultations and, with support from consultancy Araujo Ibarra, engaged more than 30 stakeholders and strategic partners. Asocolflores framed the outcome as evidence of the value of research, sanitary diplomacy and sustained industry association management at a moment when production costs, exchange rates and trade conditions are all pressing on margins.

New export lanes for propagation material?

The decision also widens the product range Colombia can ship. With white rust off the quarantine list, the industry sees room to develop commercial opportunities for chrysanthemum propagation material — cuttings, stems and leaves intended for propagation, plus plants and seedlings produced through in vitro culture. That category has previously been constrained by the pest's quarantine status, and opening it would give exporters a higher-value cargo stream beyond cut flowers.

What happens next?

Asocolflores and Ceniflores say the next step is converting the delisting into concrete benefits for producers and exporters. Both organizations will keep working with the ICA and relevant authorities to refine procedures, analyze the requirements APHIS retains, and support the review of Colombian regulations, including the definition of conditions for exporting propagation material.

The industry groups add that preventive, monitoring and phytosanitary management measures will stay in place even as the specific U.S.-driven requirements fall away. For Colombian flower growers, the trajectory is now toward lower compliance costs, a broader export basket and stronger competitiveness in the market that buys nearly all of their chrysanthemums.