The Hawaiians are right....

K Barrett

"janet_a" wrote in message
om...
August 24, 2004
Orchids Flourish on Taiwanese Production Line
By KEITH BRADSHER

--NYT


HOUBI, Taiwan - Rising from what was once a muddy expanse of sugar
cane fields here are huge greenhouses and the concrete shells of what
will soon be a flower exposition hall, a genetic modification
laboratory and more - the first steps in Taiwan's plan to dominate the
world's $2 billion orchid industry.
If the Taiwan effort is successful, orchids could lose their image as
the high-priced but finicky princes of the floral world and become
lesser nobility, almost as inexpensive as poinsettias. The favored
flower for debutantes' corsages a generation ago, orchids are already
starting to appear in rows of $15 potted specimens at mass
merchandisers like Home Depot, and seem poised to become even cheaper.
With their mysteriously complex shapes and colors and their exotic and
inaccessible homes in swamps and tropical forests, orchids were the
darlings of wealthy collectors in Victorian days. They were hunted
across the globe by adventurers who not infrequently gave their lives
in pursuit of very rare varieties that even today can sometimes bring
thousands of dollars.
Large commercial greenhouses have robbed orchids of some of their
elite cachet since then. Now, if Taiwan is successful, there could be
orchids for the masses. Seeking a cash crop to replace sugar, which is
plagued by falling prices, Taiwan is hoping to double its orchid
business, and the government plans to bring heavy public spending into
the previously private world of growing orchids.
But Taiwan's ambitious plans to become a flower power have set off
legal, economic, environmental and political debates from here to
Washington.
A federal court in the United States is scheduled to hear arguments
this autumn from Hawaiian orchid growers who contend that Taiwan's
ambitions threaten their livelihood and the environment.
Nearly a quarter of the world's orchids now spend at least part of
their lives in Taiwanese greenhouses.
Taiwan produces mainly a lovely genus of orchids known as
phalaenopsis, or moth orchids. The blossoms come in many hues, from
gold to lilac to white, and in striped and polka-dot patterns. These
are the mainstay of the orchid industry, although oncidiums also sell
well. Fancier varieties sold by florists, like cattleyas and vandas,
can cost several times as much.
With globalization and outsourcing, orchids have been getting ever
cheaper. Many are now started in labs in industrialized countries like
the United States and Japan and then shipped by air in glass flasks to
places like Thailand to grow. They are then shipped back by air in
boxes, their roots bare of soil, to be potted and grown in greenhouses
close to their final markets for the last six to eight months before
they bloom.
This summer, after six years of sometimes bitter review, the United
States Department of Agriculture approved regulations that would allow
potted phalaenopsis to be imported from Taiwan. But orchid growers in
Hawaii have asked a federal court for a preliminary injunction to
block the imports.
The Hawaiian growers contend that the potting material, a type of
moss, could harbor dangerous insects like blood-sucking midges and
tiny thrips, which can carry plant diseases.
"What effect would it have on the ecology, and the safety of our
plants, with the introduction of pathogens and pests and so forth from
Southeast Asia?" asked Walter Moé, the president of the Hawaii Orchid
Growers Association. The Hawaiian growers are also upset by what they
see as unfair subsidies from Taiwan's Democratic Progressive
government, which favors greater independence from mainland China.
The government of Taiwan is paying $65 million to cover the
construction costs of everything except the greenhouses - and is
offering government-backed, 10-year loans at 2 percent interest to
help farmers build those.
Yen Chun-tso, the deputy magistrate of Tainan County, which includes
the village of Houbi and which is administering the new orchid
plantation, said the new complex complied with international free
trade rules, which allow the government to pay for infrastructure.
Officials in Washington declined to comment.
When finished, the Taiwan Orchid Plantation will have not only an
exposition hall and genetics laboratory, but also a quarantine site,
shipping and packing areas, a grid of new roads edged by tidy brick
sidewalks and water and electrical hookups for more than 200
industrial-size greenhouses. It will create 1,500 jobs.
Like Taipei 101, which will become the world's tallest building by
most measures when it opens in December, the Taiwan Orchid Plantation
here is a monument to the vaulting ambitions of Chen Shui-bian,
Taiwan's president for the last four years. It also is a physical
reminder to everyone in Tainan County that a hometown boy did well:
President Chen was born and raised in a small farming village a dozen
miles away.
Mr. Yen said that local officials from Mr. Chen's Democratic
Progressive Party would cite the plantation in future election
campaigns.
Orchid farmers here say that while they want to bring mass production
to orchids, they also care deeply about their flowers. Lin Fan-jung,
an orchid farmer, walked through his greenhouses recently and pointed
out the unused automatic sprinkler system. It does not provide exactly
the right amount of water, so workers water each plant by hand, he
said.
Walking through four successive doors, including an air lock with
powerful fans to remove dust and bacteria from visitors, Mr. Lin
showed off a lab where young women wearing hair nets used sharp knives
to carefully divide baby orchid plants.
Orchid buyers should never smoke around their plants because orchids
are very sensitive to air pollution, he said, adding: "An orchid is
something with its own life. You should take care of it like your own
children." Farmers here say that they ship live potted orchids to
countries across Asia, Europe and Latin America without problems from
insects or diseases. Taiwan's growers persuaded the United States
Agriculture Department that finely woven nets over greenhouse air
vents here would keep bugs away from the plants.
American growers respond that European and Japanese importers douse
arriving plants with pesticides that United States law does not allow.
The Hawaiian growers also contend that three species of wild orchids
indigenous to their islands, one endangered and the other two listed
as threatened, could be devastated if dangerous insects or plant
diseases arrived from Taiwan.
Taiwan has a huge advantage on labor costs. Greenhouse workers here
earn $600 a month, a third of what workers doing similar jobs earn in
expensive Hawaii.
Shipping orchids in pots, instead of with bare roots in boxes, would
allow Taiwan to export bigger plants that would require less time to
mature in American greenhouses. After Taiwan's recent success, the
Netherlands, which dominates the European market, petitioned the
Agriculture Department to allow Dutch growers to ship potted
phalaenopsis to the United States, too; the department has not yet
acted on the petition.
These developments are all the more worrisome to Hawaiian growers
because Thailand, too, has become a huge orchid seller. However, it
sells mainly cut orchid flowers, and plays a lesser role in the more
technologically demanding business of supplying live plants. Almost
all of the orchids in the leis given to tourists in Hawaii now come
from Thailand, forcing Hawaiian growers to depend on sales of potted
orchids, Mr. Moé said.
Many restaurants also use Thai orchids to decorate tropical meals, to
the dismay of orchid experts. Leon Lin, an orchid adviser to the
Tainan County government, wrinkled his nose in disgust when his lunch
plate of fried rice in Hsinying, the county seat, came with a cut
purple orchid on top. "All orchids are drenched with pesticides - they
should never be allowed to touch food,'' he said, grimacing as he
gingerly removed the flower with his right thumb and forefinger and
tossed it in the middle of the table.
Orchids have even made a splash in publishing and movies in recent
years, with the publication of a successful book, "The Orchid Thief,"
by Susan Orlean, which was also made into a movie, "Adaptation.''
The book chronicled the attention given to orchids through a long
stretch of recorded history, from their cultivation by the upper
classes in China for 3,000 years to their use as medicine to treat
everything from boils to sick elephants. "Even if you can buy them at
Home Depot they still have a quality that's alluring and strangely
forbidding," she said in a telephone interview.
As in many industries, the spectacular economic expansion in China has
cushioned orchid growers somewhat from rising competition. In January,
Chinese buyers bought up practically every live red orchid in Asia and
Europe for Chinese New Year, paying breathtaking prices of as much as
$30 a plant at wholesale, said Andrew Easton, an executive at Kerry's
Bromeliads in Homestead, Fla.
But the long-term trend in orchid prices is clearly downward, even as
quality improves. Mr. Easton remembers paying $80 in 1958 for a small
purple cattleya.
"Now,'' he said, "I can get an orchid as good as that one for $25.''


--j_a