There’s Big Money Offering in the

[?]F Fiji Can Get It

There’s Big Money Offering in the US Flower Market

By J. P. Shortall

Is Fiji missing out on a valuable dollar industry in cut flowers?

If any are exported at present, the quantities must be insignificant they rate no mention in the Colony’s annual trade returns. Yet Fiji would seem to have all the attributes for the establishment of this industry.

LANTASTIC? For an answer top that we need only take a look at what is going on at present.

For years, Australia has been ex iting substantial quantities of cut >wers to the United States and sewhere. New Zealand is only just vakening to the possibilities. Four i ars ago, a man at Whakatane — hich is a long way from the main r-freight outlet at Auckland —took ) the business full-time.

He has been air-freighhting jwards of 10,000 cymbidium orchid ems each year during the Sep mber-November Northern hemis lere off-season, and the American iporters have been paying him in le vicinity of a dollar a stem— bich leaves plenty of profit after r-freight has been paid.

Now some Auckland growers are alising the possibilities of this

particular orchid, which will last up to' six weeks from time of cutting if properly handled.

The Whakatane man has been landing his produce in San Fran cisco about 30 hours after harvest ing. Fiji could deliver flowers in half that time and at a fraction of the production costs.

Enough Varieties?

The airlines are encouraging the trade from New Zealand by offering special bulk freight rates, which Fiji would also receive, and which would in any case be substantially lower than those from Auckland or Sydney.

Can the marketable varieties of flowers be satisfactorily produced in the tropics? For the answer to that we need only to look at Hawaii.

Details of exports by ship are not available, but over the past seven years the average quantity of cut flowers sent by air annually has been 364,715 lbs, including cut foliage, cut flowers and orchids. The value has been in the vicinity of a million dollars a year in recent years—quite apart from a substantial local home trade to Honolulu consumers.

The Hawaiian industry is very

thoroughly surveyed in an interest ing publication of the University of Hawaii, Agricultural Economics Bulletin 10, recently issued. Its con tents should be of great value to any one contemplating entering the in dustry.

Detailing exports in 1955-56, it lists the main varieties shipped, their f.o.b. values in Honolulu and the wholesale prices on the US West Coast.

Average prices are misleading, as demand—and price—vary consider ably through the year. The Ameri can market appears to be at its slackest in mid-summer and mid winter.

Retail Prices An indication of what Americans are prepared to pay for flowers is seen in the range of retail prices in the United States for Hawaii’s principal export variety, anthuriums, which bring about six dollars per dozen for the poorest, up to 24 dollars for the best. Foliage brings from 40 to 60 cents per dozen pieces.

There is no market for rubbish or for a poorly packed product, but there appears to be a thriving market for top quality material.

Exploiting the experience of Hawaiian exporters, a Fiji industry could have certain advantages if, from the very beginning growers and exporters established a high standard of export quality and of packing.

Carelessness in this direction could ruin the industry before it got under way, and some system of policing the produce to maintain such standards would be highly desirable, on the basis of Hawaiian experience.

Packing varies greatly with the type of bloom. Certain varieties re quire individual treatment for each stem —a plastic or glass test-tube

type of water container being at tached. Where the size is right, empty beer cartons or similar standardised cartons can be used.

A great deal has to be learnt about packing methods—and this information is all available in Uni versity of Hawaii College of Agri culture publications. Marketing is through recognised agents in the

United States and some of these are mentioned in the US publication.

The cut-flower industry may not represent any major contribution to the total Fiji economy, but it has all the marks of providing a prosperous living for at least a few who have the enterprise to go about it in the right way.