Seeds of ambition emerge to cultivate flower power as a lucrative cash harvest
Three centuries after tulip mania swept Europe, the mainland is proposing to cultivate flower production into its most lucrative cash crop.
There's plenty of room to grow.
Exports from the mainland's fledgling flower industry account for less than 1 per cent of the world market, though it has been more than a decade since state planners established a trade association to boost sales.
Growth has 'long been slow', acknowledged the China Association on Plants and Flowers.
Mainland flower exports reached 2,500 tonnes last year, the equivalent of a week's worth of sales for tiny Holland, the world's largest exporter of flowers, plants and bulbs.
'The industry is improving, but it doesn't reach the standard we expect in terms of exports,' a Western trader said.
The mainland has been a late bloomer in the multi-billion dollar industry next to such big growers as Columbia, Israel, Kenya, Zimbabwe and India.
Mainland producers earned US$80 million on 1996 exports - a record for the industry, though insignificant by international standards.
In comparison, a single Dutch flower market, Bloemenveiling Aalsmeer, reported revenue of $1.36 billion last year.
'The level of knowledge in the agricultural sector in China is behind the times,' an official with the Netherlands' embassy in Beijing said.
'It's an expanding market, but there's a need to increase production and improve quality.' The mainland flower sector claims to have more than 100 foreign-financed joint ventures, mainly small producers like northwest Yunnan's Sino-Dutch Gesan Floriculture Co.
Gesan will claim its first net profit of $48,000 this year after three years in business, according to general manager Xiong Cankun.
'You can make more money on tulips than wheat or cotton, but it's hard work,' Mr Xiong said.
At Gesan's Zhongdian tulip farm, production remains small-scale - the workforce numbers 25 field hands.
The company produced 600,000 tulip bulbs last year, with sales limited to Hong Kong and Shanghai.
Mr Xiong noted there was still 'no really big flower producers in China' despite attempts to develop Yunnan into the nation's floriculture capital.
'Still, there's a lot of potential,' he said.
'Cheap labour is a big advantage.' At Gesan Co, workers are paid $2.40 a day - a handsome wage, by local standards.
In a report earlier this year, National People's Congress lawmakers hailed the prospect of 'making full use of cheap labour in vast rural areas' by cultivating floriculture.
State planners agree.
Nationwide, growers seeded 75,000 hectares worth of flowers this year, from azaleas in Liaoning to chrysanthemums in Fujian.
Under a five-year plan, the mainland proposes to expand its flower acreage by a third and triple exports.
