"Carefully Grown Flowers Not Even Selling Wholesale, Discarded"…Floriculture Farms on the Brink of Closure Suffer Deeply

Peak Season Graduation and Entrance Ceremonies Canceled or Postponed
Transaction Volume Halved, Flower Prices Down 20%
"One Month Electricity Bill Discounted by 6 Million Won..."

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bong-gi] "There have always been difficult situations, but this is the hardest I've ever experienced."

Moon Gyu-seon (64), who cultivates roses on a 4,000㎡ area in Goyang-si, Gyeonggi-do, is deeply worried. Although Moon has been growing roses for 23 years, a national disaster like the novel coronavirus infection (hereafter COVID-19) is beyond his ability to handle. The harvested roses are classified into three grades, and the lowest grade 3, which has the least value, is discarded at a rate of over 100 stems daily. Even the remaining grade 1 and 2 roses often fail to be sold at the auction market.

According to the Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation (aT) Yangjae-dong Flower Auction Market on the 6th, the auction volume in the last week of February was nearly half compared to the same period last year. While 466,000 bunches were traded in the last week of February 2019, only 321,000 bunches were traded in the last week of last month. One bunch is the basic unit of flower auctions. The average winning bid price also dropped from 3,659 won per bunch to 2,905 won. With the volume reduced to 68.8% and the auction price at 79% compared to the previous year, the overall transaction scale has been halved.

The reduction or cancellation of various events and gatherings was expected, but the scale of damage has far exceeded expectations. Especially since the epidemic occurred during the peak season of the year, such as graduation and entrance ceremonies and the spring season, the damage appears to have become severe.

Flower farmers bring their carefully grown flowers to the auction market, but when they fail to be sold and only logistics costs are incurred, many cases of immediate disposal on site are occurring. Local governments, agricultural cooperatives, and companies are purchasing flowers to help flower farmers, but these are not fundamental solutions. Recently, the Agricultural Cooperative has decided to urgently purchase 1 billion won worth of flowers to support flower farmers. LH and IBK Industrial Bank plan to purchase flowers and potted plants to give to customers to help flower farmers and florists. Geumcheon-gu, Seoul, also advanced the planting time of flowers in the district office flower beds and increased the purchase amount compared to last year to support flower farmers on the 27th of last month.

Kim Yoon-sik, chairman of the Korea Flower Self-Governing Fund Council, said, "Large-scale purchases are a great help, but since they are not continuous, there are limits," expressing regret, "It was not this bad even during MERS." Moon Gyu-seon said, "It costs about 6 million won per month in electricity bills to grow flowers, and if I stop using it, I have to throw away all the flowers," adding, "I hope that solutions such as electricity bill reductions for farms will be considered to understand our difficulties."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.