 
HOUBI - 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.'' -
NEW
YORK TIMES
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