The thorny path for Da Lat flowers
According to Nguyen Van An, Director of the Lam Dong provincial Department for Agriculture and Rural Development, the flower growing area in Lam Dong province increased rapidly from 1731 hectares in 2003 to 3500 hectares in 2010. The output and the turnover has been increasing accordingly. In 2010, Lam Dong put out 1.5 billion branches of flowers and exported 16 million dollars worth of products. Da Lat alone accounts for 50 percent of the total growing area and 70 percent of the output.
There are over 400 floral varieties grown in Da Lat with thousands of flowers of all kinds which are the traditional flowers of Da Lat and the ones sourced from Europe.
Though the growing area and the revenue have been increasing, local gardeners still feel worried about the Da Lat flower industry. The problem is that the consumption of the products much depends on the domestic market, especially HCM City and the provinces in the central region.
Tran Huy Duong, Chair of the Da Lat Flower Association, said that the market has become narrower for Da Lat flowers because of the sharp increases in the supply. The flower growing area in Da Lat increases by 30 percent every year. Meanwhile, other localities have also been striving to grow flowers and targeting the domestic market.
Duong said that 10 years ago, a report said five percent of the total Da Lat flowers was exported to different countries in the world. In 2011, the proportion remained the same.
While Da Lat has bigger advantages than other land areas in the region, its export volume is much lower. There are only 600 hectares of daisy growing area on Cameron highland of Malaysia, while the total export volume to Japan accounts for up to 60 percent of the total output.
Meanwhile, Da Lat flowers have been mostly consumed in the domestic market, and only a small proportion has been exported to Japan, Australia, the US and Europe. The problem is that Da Lat flowers still cannot satisfy the high requirements of the world market.
The florists do not have high skills, while commercial flowers do not have high quality because of the degeneration. The new high quality flower varieties cultivated in Da Lat have overly high production costs; therefore, they prove to be uncompetitive in the world market.
As a result, Da Lat flowers have been relying on the domestic market. It happens that when harvesting bountiful crops, the flower prices drop dramatically, and when the prices go up, florists do not have products to sell. Local residents said that some years ago, the flower price once plummeted so dramatically that florists had to pull up the plants and burn them.
What is the way out?
“Export or die” is the motto set up by the local authorities. Da Lat florists well understand that they need to strive to export flowers instead of relying on the domestic market.
Pham Ngoc Trung, Deputy Director of the Agricultural Expansion Encouragement Center of the Lam Dong province, also said that Da Lat flowers need to reach out to the new and choosy markets such as the US, Japan and European countries. And in order to do that, it is necessary to improve the quality of Da Lat flowers by re-programing the flower growing area, applying new technologies in cultivation.
Especially, Duong said that it is necessary to develop the Da Lat flower brand and register the brand immediately.
Source: TBKTSG
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