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.Wilting Future

ROLEX

Life hasn't been a bed of roses for Israeli flower growers,
who are fighting for survival in a tough global market.

New & Used

RICKY BLACKBURN SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

G

rower Eytan Frank looked
out over a field of fragile
purple-blue flowers and
sighed. "In two weeks the
2
Dutch will be selling them, so
they won't be worth anything,"
he said gloomily and leaned up
against a container filled with the
remnants of cast-off and dying
flowers.
"And they were late this year
because of the bad spring. We
didn't get much out of them at
all. ,,
It's the third year that Mr.
Frank, the owner of a flower farm
on Moshav Givat Chen near
Ra'anana, has been
selling scabiosa.
Started as a trial, he
is still not sure if the
flower can make
enough money. It's a
risk he has to take,
however. Without a
/– constant stream of
new varieties to en-
tice the market, his
survival in an in
creasingly competi-
tive world is deeply
uncertain.
Mr. Frank, 32,
who runs the farm
with his father,
Yaier, exports four
million cut stems a
/-'
year, making his
flower farm one of Is-
rael's top 100. He is
not the only farmer
having difficulties.
The last three
years have been
tough for everyone,
and even Bickel
Flowers, the largest
/---) flower producer in
the Middle East, is
feeling the pinch. As
the amount of flow-
ers Israeli farmers
produce and sell has gone up,
profits have gone down.
Tm worried about the future,"
admits Mr. Frank who joined the
business nearly 10 years ago.
'This is a very bad time for grow-
/-) ers."
Farming is never a stable
business, but even with the va-
garies of weather and market it
is clear that Israel's flower in-
dustry is in trouble. Stiff compe-
tition from abroad, falling flower
prices, high inflation and a poor
exchange rate have all had a neg-
ative impact on the business,
which made $260 million in the
1995-96 season.
Though industry experts still
anticipate growth of between five
to eight percent per annum over

the next few years (forecasts for
the '96-'97 season are in the re-
gion of $280 million) as a result
of investment, improved produc-
tion, new varieties and better
flowers, the prognosis still looks
grim. Some even go so far as to
say that the bottom is dropping
out of the flower market.
"Every year there are 50 per-
cent fewer growers," says
Yitzhaki Yitzhak, administra-
tive manager of the Israel
Flower Union.
"The number of acres being
farmed remains the same be-
cause the larger farms are grow-

ing bigger, but only the strong
can survive. Small growers are
going out of business."
"About 20-30 percent of Israeli
growers are thinking about get-
ting out of the business because
of recent economic difficulties,"
says Chaviv Haaze, marketing
manager at the Flower Board of
Israel (FBI).
Israel only began exporting
flowers in the 1960s, and yet
within that short period the coun-
try has become the third largest
exporter of cut flowers in the
world, after Holland and Colum-
bia. Flowers are now the biggest
agricultural item being exported
cut of Israel. in 1980-31, Israeli
sales were $120 million; 10 years
later they had reached $159 mil-

lion In 1996, 1.5 billion cut stems
were exported out of the country,
1 billion of which went to the
Dutch market.
When exports began, Israel
had two main advantages over
the competition: its sunny and
moderate winter climate and an
intelligent population of farmers
who could absorb new informa-
tion easily.
At first, farmers grew simple
flowers such as gladioli, roses,
carnations and greenery. But as
the years passed, more compli-
cated flowers were introduced.
Yaier Frank, who started farm-
ing in the 1970s, was
among the first to cul-
tivate flowers such as
lyatrice and gypso-
phylia — traditional-
ly grown in Europe
through the summer
— during Israel's mild
winter.
The FBI was formed
in the middle of the
1960s as an initiative
of the country's private
growers. Today, the
board handles the pro-
duction and marketing
of over 95 percent of all
flowers and ornamen-
tal plants exported out
of Israel.
About 80 percent of
Israeli flowers are be-
ing exported through
the FBI to European
auctions, particularly
in Holland; 15 percent
are sold under the
brand name of Carmel,
which is handled by
Agrexco, a semi-gov-
ernmental organiza-
tion which exports and
markets fresh produce;
and 5 percent via pri-
vate initiatives such as
Bickel Flowers.
Initially, the FBI controlled the
amount of land and type of flow-
ers that could be cultivated by
farmers. This system was
dropped in the 1980s and free
trade began. The immediate up-
shot was that the number of
growers dropped from 7,000 pro-
ducing half a billion flowers to to-
day's 2,000 growers producing
three times that number.
The real problems began in the
early 1990s.
Until then Israel had compet-
ed on fairly equal terms with
flower producers in Europe. Sud-
denly, countries like South Africa,
Kenya, Ecuador and Columbia,

WILTING

page 68

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