Flowers for Tet - the dim picture

Sharp drop in planting areas, no sight of traders

In recent times, farmers from Ninh Giang ward (Ninh Hoa town), a location which is considered as a popular daisy flower garden of Khanh Hoa province, are busy taking care of their daisy season to provide for the upcoming Lunar New Year.

Struggling to water 200 pots of daisies, Mr. Tran Minh Tu, a senior florist in a senior florist in Phong Phu 2 residential group, Ninh Giang Ward, said, "Due to the influence of Covid-19, in the daisy crop for Tet this year the whole ward experiences a decrease both in terms of daisy planting households and planting areas."

For Mr. Tu’s family, every year they plant about 700 daisy pots of all kinds, including the crystal variation and the large variation. However in this year, due to fear of difficulty in consumption, he has only planted 200 pots, including 20 large pots with a diameter from 90cm to 1m, the others are medium size pots with a diameter of 60cm. 

According to Mr Tu, before 2020 and the influence of the Covid-19 pandemic, the people’s daisy glowing businesses were very active. Usually, at this time, traders from everywhere had already gathered to look for flowers, deposit them first, then wait until about December 20 to transport the flowers for consumption everywhere else. However, this year, the sight is currently quiet, making the people feel anxious due to the lack of traders.

Not very far from Mr. Tu’s garden is Mr. Nguyen Van Toan’s daisy garden, a person also from Phong Phu 2 village, who is also occupied with his task of carefully taking care of the flower pots.

In this year's daisy season to provide for Tet, Mr. Toan family only plants 200 pots, down more than half compared to last year. Not only are traders not coming for deposits, in recent times, the people, as well as his family planting businesses, are also under disadvantage due to prolonged rain causing damage to the lower leaves of plants, a few plants were also lost completely. To heal the flowers after the rain, farmers have to spend a lot of effort taking care of, treating faeces, and very expensive plant protection products.

Sharply increasing investment costs

Mr. Nguyen Phu Tien, a daisy growing household in Ninh Giang Ward, shared, asides from difficulties in the planting process due to disadvantageous weather, investment costs for this year’s Tet flower season also increase from 15-20% compared to every year because the prices of fertilizers, plant protection products and labour costs are soaring. Not only that, because the Covid-19 epidemic is still unpredictable, people are still very worried about the Tet flower season and wondering about consumption in the near future.

“Traders are currently hesitant to make deposits for the flowers unlike every year. Even so local growers are still doing their best to take care of the flowers with the hope that the Covid-19 pandemic will stabilize and make it easier to secure sales at the end of the year," said Mr. Tien.

Mr. Phan Sang, Chairman of Ninh Giang Ward Farmers' Union shared that since 2016 the daisy planting village of Phong Phu 2 had been recognized by Khanh Hoa People's Committee as a traditional craft village with 147 planting households and 250 laborers.

In 2017 the Intellectual Property Office (MOST) granted the certificate to "Ninh Giang Daisy" the collective trademark. Ninh Giang’s daisies have recently created a famous brand in the South Central region for their bright, light-colored, large and long-lasting flowers, thick and green leaves. Flower pots are created in symmetrical and luxuriant form, symbolizing the family reunion on Tet holiday. For that reason, Ninh Giang’s flowers are broadly consumed in markets such as Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Duong, Dak Lak, Dak Nong, Binh Dinh…

According to Mr. Sang, in previous years the whole ward provided 140.000 - 150.000 daisy pots of all kinds, mostly the enlarged and the crystal variation in service of the Lunar New Year market, making revenue of VND 13-14 billion. After deducting the cost, flower growers of the whole ward normally made a profit of VND over 6 billion.

Floriculture has created a lot of job opportunities for local laborers through flower care. But due to the influence of the Covid-19 pandemic since 2020 the whole ward only provided approximately 40.000 thousand pots. And as for this year's flower crop, there are only 90 flower households still planting flowers with approximately 25.000 pots sold.

According to daisy growers in Ninh Giang. This career is extremely arduous. Even since January, they already have to climb mountains to cut down (or buy) bamboo to make a frame to hold the flower body and make flower pots.

In April and May lunar calendar, they have already started buying manure with ashes for composting. On the full moon of July lunar calendar, when there are enough seedlings, they put them in pots and start lighting to stimulate the young plants to grow in height, and not close the buds early.

After taking care of it till the 11th Lunar, they will cut the electricity, and proceed to pick the buds. This means, a branch only has one bud so that the flower is beautiful, even and big. From December 20 onwards, daisies will start to bloom and will be aimed to grow fully in Tet.