Small town grows thanks to flowers

On Valentine's Day, the best time for selling flowers in the country, the price of roses rose to 12 yuan each. However, the price of other flowers that went on the market in warm spring weather fell by 0.3 yuan each last month.

Li Shuquan, a flower farmer in Qujing, says he and many neighbors built makeshift greenhouses with thin plastic film, but that was not enough to protect the flowers against snow and frost. "The plastic protective film became red after the roses withered and lost color. Two hectares of roses died."

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In cities such as Qujing and Pu'er, agricultural technicians helped farmers by watering trees during the day to ease temperature drops at night.

"Some varieties were simply killed by the frost," Zhang says. "At my market, about 2 million flowers are traded each day, and after the snow, that number fell 60 percent."

More than 30 companies in Dounan trade flowers with international buyers, including Kunming Qingyi Flower and Gardening Co Ltd. The company's manager, Yang Yanhong, says it started to trade internationally three years ago, dissatisfied with growth in domestic demand.

Last year, more than 80 percent of Qingyi's flowers were exported, the main destinations being Russia, South Korea, Singapore and the Philippines.

"To find out the optimum time for selling flowers in each country, we did research on their important holidays," Yang says. "They're all different. For example, Russians like to present flowers to women on International Women's Day, while Koreans like to present carnations on Mother's Day."

The yield on international sales is at least 10 percent higher than domestic sales, Kunming Qingyi Flower and Gardening Co officials say. Ten carnations can fetch 22 yuan abroad, 5 yuan more than what they would fetch in China. However, as is often the case, there is a balancing act in raising prices to pull in cash but not deterring customers.

"When carnations were sold at 35 yuan a bundle, a record high, last winter, I had to sell the flowers at the original price to my foreign customers to keep them happy," Yang says.